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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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ONE EVANGELICAL MINISTRY. 



APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION, DOCTRINAL, 
NOT TACTUAL, NOR EXCLUSIVELY EPISCOPAL; 

mmtxKttts fcg fyz W&taxj) 

OF THE 

PATRIARCHAL CHURCH OP ALEXANDRIA. 

BY 

REV. MASON GALLAGHER, 

Rector of St. PauVs Church, Paterson, N. J". 

AUTHOR OP " TRUE CHURCHMANSHIP VINDICATED," " TRUE APOSTOLICAL SUCCES- 
SION*, " AND "THE REGARD DUE TO THE VIRGIN MARY." 



" I would there were no precedency, no priority, no dignities in the Church, hut that 
men's estimation did only rise from virtue. But now the right hand and the left, the 
higher and the lower place, these terms of diffterency have led men, not to the truth, 
but unto that ditch where error muddeth itself."— St. Geegory Nazianzen, after 
Farindon. 






NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 

ffiamimUge: EUbersftte $ress. 

1868. 

■Y 



. & 3 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

Mason Gallagher, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



lo 
THE LAITY 

OF THE 

UPON WHOSE ENLIGHTENED UNDERSTANDING OF THE STRUGGLE 

WHICH NOW CONVULSES OUR CHURCH, AND UPON WHOSE 

DETERMINED RESISTANCE TO THE ERRORS AND 

INNOVATIONS OF THE CLERICAL BODY, 

WHICH PORTEND ITS DISRUPTION, 

THIS CHURCH, UNDER GOD, RESTS FOR ITS DELIVERANCE 

AND PRESERVATION, 

erjns little Volume 

IS AFFECTIONATELY AND EARNESTLY 

ADDRESSED. 



PREFACE. 



The principal object of this essay is to show 
that the Church of England, in publicly acknowl- 
edging the validity of a ministry without episco- 
pal ordination or consecration, for more than a 
century after the Reformation, and in the best 
period of her history, was sustained by the pre- 
cedent of the Primitive Church. 

The patriarchal Church of Alexandria is here 
proved to have been episcopal in government, 
while, at the same time, it was without episcopal 
consecration or succession for the space of two 
hundred years immediately succeeding the times 
of the Apostles. 

Ample proof is given that the English Re- 
formers, Compilers, and Revisers of our stand- 
ards, were cognizant of the fact, and reasoned 
and acted accordingly. 



vi PREFACE. 

The concessions of the ablest modern divines 
of the same Church are here presented. The 
Church of England is thus fully vindicated with 
respect to her deliberate action in the premises. 

Another important point is hereby established. 
According to the same primitive precedent, there 
is in the presbyterate an original, inherent power 
of perpetuating the ministry in all its functions, 
and therefore to be exercised when required, in 
conjunction with the laity, to remove abuses, and 
to purify the Church. 

Again, it will be seen that the doctrine of an 
indispensable, unbroken episcopal tactual succes- 
sion, asserted by the Romanists, was rejected by 
the Reformers and Revisers of our standards; 
and, moreover, that a large portion of the Primi- 
tive Church acted without respect to such a suc- 
cession. 

With the overthrow of this dogma is destroyed 
the structure of a human, officiating priesthood, 
with the system of Ritualism based upon it. 

The question is one of testimony, not of preju- 
dice or of mere individual opinion. Ample tes- 
timony, it is claimed, is here given to establish 
the statements above made. A candid examina- 
tion is asked, and little doubt is felt that there 



PREFACE. vii 

will be but one decision, and that in favor of the 
positions here maintained. 

The falsity of the claim of the Church of Rome 
to the Primacy ; that she is the mother and mis- 
tress of churches, is here clearly seen. In posi- 
tion and learning, and consequently in influence, 
for the two first centuries, this Church was subor- 
dinate to the Church of Alexandria. Superiority, 
neither in learning nor zeal, but in wealth and 
temporal influence, gave the Church of Rome the 
precedence, whose kingdom for so many centuries 
has been manifestly of this world, not of heaven. 

Strange is it that the Romish writers cannot 
agree as to the order of the early bishops of that 
see; nor can they prove that for two centuries 
they received episcopal consecration. All such 
statements being based on assumptions and un- 
founded inferences, what becomes of that much 
lauded succession, upon which rests the whole 
anti-scriptural system of doctrine and worship, 
by which so large a portion of Christendom has 
been so long deceived and shrouded in spiritual 
darkness ? The maintenance of the succession 
dogma by large numbers in our own communion 
strengthens Romanism by distracting the Prot- 
estant cause, and thus promotes schism among 



viii PREFACE. 

those holding the one scriptural faith, and the true 
apostolical doctrine. 

The argument for the general prevalence of 
moderate Episcopacy in primitive times is 
strengthened, not weakened, by the views here 
presented. With the Episcopacy which approved 
itself to Cranmer, Jewel, Usher, and Leighton, 
the writer is fully satisfied. He has seen nothing 
better in his own day. 

The pressing of extravagant claims, supported 
neither by Scripture, history, reason, or a wise 
policy, has jeopardized the interests, checked the 
growth, and sadly impaired the reputation and 
influence of the truly noble heritage handed 
down to us by the Protestant Reformers of Eng- 
land. 

The effort to extend the system of Archbishop 
Laud in this free, intelligent land, has proved, 
as might have been expected, almost a complete 
failure ; and whatever hold our Church has upon 
the American people, is owing to their convic- 
tion, that this system is a false, and not a true 
presentation of Protestant Episcopacy ; that it is 
ephemeral, and will become, ere long, a discred- 
ited novelty. 

To any charge of a want of attachment to the 



PREFACE. ix 

Protestant Episcopal Church, the writer will only 
point to a service of near a quarter of a century 
in her ministry. He has no other answer to give. 

One of the phenomena of our Church, is the 
rapidity with which those newly received into our 
fold (and more than half our ministry have come 
from other communions) become sounder church- 
men, in their own estimation, than many who 
have labored a lifetime in her service. 

A late bishop, in one of our largest and most 
generally exclusive dioceses, stated to the writer, 
a few years since, that he had ascertained that 
but one fifth of his clergy had been reared in the 
Episcopal Church. In a communion so conglom- 
erate, is it strange that there is so little unity, 
harmony, and mutual cooperation, or, that men 
changing their inherited beliefs, and embracing 
the unscriptural and unreasonable tenets of the 
modern, exclusive, jure divino Episcopacy, should 
proceed to any extravagance, and even land at 
the true logical terminus of such a theory, the 
Church of Rome, the present home of four of the 
writer's classmates of the General Theological 
Seminary ? The late President Nott has wisely 
remarked : " Men who go over from one denomi- 
nation to another always stand up more than 



X PREFACE. 

straight^ and for two reasons: First, to satisfy 
their new friends that they have heartily renounced 
their former error; secondly, to convince their for- 
mer friends that they had good reasons for de- 
sertion." 

In view of the state of things in our Church, 
how singularly applicable are the words of the 
eminent Dr. Isaac Barrow, as quoted by Dr. 
Arnold, an equally eminent churchman : ? c A con- 
siderable cause of our divisions hath been the 
broaching scandalous names, and employing them 
to blast the reputation of worthy men, bespatter- 
ing and aspersing them with insinuations, etc. ; 
engines devised by spiteful, and applied by sim- 
ple people ; latitudinarians, rationalists, and I 
know not what other names intended for reproach, 
though imparting better signification than those 
dull detractors can, it seems, discern." 

From the fact that, for some time, the writer 
conscientiously and earnestly advocated the ex- 
clusive episcopal theory, he thinks that he enjoys 
a greater advantage in the discussion of this ques- 
tion. He has surveyed it from more than one 
direction. He has known by experience the evils 
of the system against which he is earnestly con- 
tending. A somewhat thorough study of the 



PREFACE. xi 

writings of the English Reformers, compelled him 
to modify his views, and to adopt the principles 
of the Compilers of the Prayer Book, in prefer- 
ence to the innovations of Laud and of his fol- 
lowers. 

Examination of the writings of the Primitive 
Fathers has convinced him that the High Church 
principle was unknown to the Church before the 
times of Cyprian, two centuries after the death 
of most of the Apostles. 

He has yet to find the statements of an early 
author, that Primitive Episcopacy was necessarily 
connected with an episcopal consecration, a sec- 
ond ordination, or an exclusive tactual succession 
of a third order of the ministry. 

Having shown that the most important Church 
of antiquity, while episcopal in government, with 
the clearest succession of patriarchs, was yet 
without episcopal consecration and tactual suc- 
cession for two centuries, the burden of proof rea- 
sonably lies with those who contend that other 
churches possessed such a tactual and uninter- 
rupted succession, to make clear the fact. It 
has never yet been done, nor can it be with our 
present amount of light. 

The' mere use of the term succession, by writers 



xii PREFACE. 

like Eusebius, Irenseus, and Tertullian, does not 
at all settle the question, inasmuch as succession 
in office and place are not necessarily connected. 
Dr. Barrow quotes Gregory Nazianzen as saying, 
" Athanasius was the successor of Mark, no less 
in piety than in presidency ; the which we must 
suppose to be properly succession." This tactual 
episcopal succession is assumed by exclusive 
writers, while no satisfactory proof is furnished. 

In a question like this, which concerns the 
Church standing, and the validity of ministerial 
acts in the largest portion of the Reformed and 
Protestant Communions, mere assumptions will 
not pass current. 

The reception of these exclusive assumptions, 
without satisfactory proof, by Christian people, 
we believe, as sincere as any, has produced its 
natural fruits, and made our Episcopacy need- 
lessly repulsive and odious. 

Primitive Episcopacy, saddled with these hu- 
man additions, how it has lost its rightful posi- 
tion ! 

In the Roman Church, the effect is seen in the 
almost complete destruction of spiritual religion, 
and the substitution of an amalgam of Judaism, 
Paganism, and a corrupted Christianity, whose 
latest and most favorite dogma, the sinless Con- 



PREFACE. xiii 

caption of the Virgin Mary, has been borrowed 
from the Koran of Mohammed. 

In the Anglican Church, the result has been the 
repulsion of a large portion of the most religious 
minds of the nation from its communion. In our 
own Church, it is seen in the sacrifice of strength 
and numbers, which might readily have been se- 
cured ; in a waning influence ; in intestine strife ; 
in the increase of formalism; and in the intel- 
lectual deterioration of the clerical body. The 
history of the past, as welt as the present con- 
dition of affairs, fully establishes these statements, 
and justifies the position taken by the author; 
a position taken conscientiously, and with the 
sincerest regard for the truth and the Church 
Catholic, and his own branch of the same. 

In a succession of apostolical doctrine ; in the 
fact of a ministerial succession ; and in a moder- 
ate, wise, and safe Episcopacy, he believes with 
the Reformers ; but in the Laudean doctrine of 
an indispensable, unbroken, episcopal tactual suc- 
cession, one entirely different from that held by 
the Christian Fathers, he has no confidence. He 
has no respect for what has proved to be a de- 
structive and impolitic innovation. He trusts 
his book may lead others to a full investigation 
of this error, and to unite with him in resisting 



xiv PREFACE. 

and opposing it, until the whole Church shall 
combine in rejecting it. 

That the legitimate result of the teachings of 
Cyprian was the papacy, he is fully convinced. 
That the contest now in the Church is between 
the principles of Cyprian and those of Luther, he 
believes, in the words of Isaac Taylor : " It is thus 
at this moment : Cyprian and Luther are wrest- 
ling amain for mastery in the English Church ; 
and one or the other of these spirits must be dis- 
lodged. A season of apathy may again come 
upon the Church, and so the struggle may stand 
over to another day ; but at its next revival, the 
English Church will either go over uncondition- 
ally to antiquity, erasing from its formularies 
whatever is Protestant in them, and will expel all 
who adhere to scriptural doctrine ; or, it will re- 
cover its lost ground, and become consistently 
Protestant and biblical." 

How remarkably has this prediction, uttered in 
1843, been verified ? We are already in the midst 
of the renewed conflict. May God speed the 
right, and give ultimate triumph to a true antiq- 
uity? May an open Bible, a free pulpit, an 
evangelical ministry, prevail over formalism, rit- 
ualism, ceremonialism, and ecclesiasticism, and 
every system akin to Judaism and Popery ? 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. page 

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ACKNOWLEDGES ONE EVANGELICAL 

MINISTRY 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE PATRIARCHAL CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA FURNISHES PRIM- 
ITIVE PRECEDENT TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WITH 
RESPECT TO THE VALIDITY OF ORDINATIONS IN CHURCHES 
DESTITUTE OF EPISCOPAL CONSECRATION AND SUCCESSION . 10 

CHAPTER III. 

NO EPISCOPAL CONSECRATION OR SUCCESSION KNOWN IN THE 
CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA FOR MORE THAN TWO CENTU- 
RIES AFTER ST. MARK 19 

CHAPTER IV. 

TESTIMONY OF ENGLISH REFORMERS 24 

CHAPTER V. 

WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 45 

CHAPTER VI. 

MODERN EPISCOPAL WRITERS . . . . . . .53 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE ARGUMENT OF AN EPISCOPAL LAYMAN OF THE CHURCH 
OF ENGLAND, WITH RESPECT TO THE ORDINATIONS OF THE 
CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA 68 



xvi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. page 

ROMAN CATHOLIC TESTIMONY '81 

CHAPTER IX. 

OBJECTIONS 84 

CHAPTER X. 

RECAPITULATION 100 

CHAPTER XI. 

TESTIMONY FROM NON-EPISCOPAL STANDARD WRITERS . . 107 

CHAPTER XII. 

SUCCESSION OF SOUND DOCTRINE, THE TRUE APOSTOLIC SUC- 
CESSION 167 



APPENDIX A. 

ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY 195 

APPENDIX B. 

CONFIRMATORY EVIDENCE . . . .. . . . 206 

APPENDIX C. 

FURTHER LAY TESTIMONY 217 



THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ACKNOWLEDGES ONE 
EVANGELICAL MINISTRY. 

It is widely asserted that the Church of Eng- 
land, and the Protestant Episcopal Church, which 
are identical in doctrine and government, deny 
the valid character of orders not conferred by 
Episcopal bishops. 'As this charge is a serious 
one, affecting the scriptural standing of that 
church, it is important that it should be exam- 
ined, and if false, be refuted. 

History fully vindicates this Church from the 
charge, and establishes her character as compre- 
hensive and catholic. 

The principles of the Church of England were 
settled by the Reformers, in the reigns of Edward 
and Elizabeth, when the Liturgy and Articles 
were compiled and revised. The action of that 
Church during this period is the best commentary 
on the intention of its legislators, and the mean- 
ing of their words. 
l 



2 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

The point to be ascertained in reference to the 
matter we are considering, is, How did these au- 
thorities deal with those who sought to minister 
in holy things in their Church, but who had been 
ordained according to the Presbyterian form? 
Did they acknowledge the valid character of such 
ordination, or did they not ? This is the simple 
question, and on its answer the whole controversy 
hinges. History decides this point as it does 
points with respect to the meaning and intent of 
the American Constitution. What Washington, 
Hamilton, and Madison have clearly declared to 
be the meaning of the latter, we receive : what 
Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and Jewel plainly 
teach with respect to the meaning of the Episco- 
pal standards, no unprejudiced man will gainsay. 
It is remarkable, in view of the opinions advanced 
by many modern Episcopal divines, that for more 
than a century after the compilation of the Prayer 
Book, that book was used by ministers not or- 
dained by bishops, who yet were regularly induct- 
ed into parishes of the Church of England, and 
the sacraments administered and all the functions 
of the ministry exercised by the same, no man 
forbidding. 

The proof we proceed to give, and if conclu- 
sive, it settles the question, notwithstanding the 
assertions of no matter how many modern claim- 
ants to the exclusive validity of episcopal orders. 
The Protestant Episcopal Church may be thor- 



MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 3 

oughly comprehensive, while at the same time 
many Protestant Episcopalians may be exclusive, 
and stand on a contracted platform. 

STRYPE (died 1737). 

Strype, the historian, remarks on the act 13th 
of Elizabeth, " By this the ordinations of the 
foreign reformed churches were made valid, and 
those that had no other orders were made the 
same capacity with others, to enjoy any place 
within England, merely on their subscribing the 
articles" (vol. ii. p. 514). 

(keble.) 

Keble, one of the founders of the modern 
school of Oxford, admits, in his preface to Hook- 
er's works (p. 76), that " nearly up to the time 
that Hooker wrote (1594), numbers had been ad- 
mitted to the ministry of the Church of England, 
with no better than presbyterian ordination." 

bishop hall (died 1656). 

Bishop Hall (vol. x. 341) writes : " The sticking 
at the admission of our brethren, returning from 
foreign reformed churches, was not in the case of 
ordination, but of institution ; they had been ac- 
knowledged ministers of Christ without any other 
hands laid on them ; but according to the laws of 
our land, they were not capable of institution to 
a benefice, unless they were so qualified as the 



4 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

statutes of this realm doth require. And, secondly, 
I know those, more than one, that by virtue of that 
ordination, which they have brought with them 
from other reformed churches, have enjoyed spir- 
itual promotions and livings without any excep- 
tions against the lawfulness of their callings" 

bishop COSIN (died 1^72). 

Bishop Cosin, in his letter to Cordel, states : — 
" If at any time, a minister so ordained in 
these French churches came to incorporate him- 
self in ours, and to receive a public charge or 
cure of souls among us, in the Church of Eng- 
land (as I have known some of them to have 
done of late, and can instance in many others 
before my time), our bishops did not reordain 
him to his charge, as they must have done if his 
former ordination in France had been void ; nor 
did our laws require more of him than to declare 
his public consent to the religion received among 
us, and subscribe the articles established " (p. 
231, Am. ed.) 

bishop burnet (died 1714). 

Bishop Burnet, in the " History of his own 
Times " (vol. i. p. 332), testified that to the year 
1662, " those who came to England from the for- 
eign churches, had not been required to be reor- 
dained among us." In his " Vindication " (p. 
84) he says : " No bishop in Scotland, during my 



MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 5 

stay in that kingdom, did so much as desire any 
of the Presbyterians to be ordained." 

bishop Fleetwood (died 1723). 

Bishop Fleetwood, in his works (p. 552), writes 
of the Church of England : — 

" Certainly it was her practice during the reigns 
of King James and Charles I. ; and to the year 
1661, we had many ministers from Scotland, 
from France, and the Low Countries, who were 
ordained by presbyters only, and not bishops, and 
they were instituted into benefice with cure ; and 
yet were never reordained, but only subscribed the 
articles." 

HALLAM AND MACAULAY. 

We close our testimony in the case, with the 
statement of two modern standard historians. 
Hallam, in his " Constitutional History " (p. 224), 
writes : — 

" It had not been unusual from the very begin- 
ning of the Reformation, to admit ministers, or- 
dained, in foreign churches to benefices in Eng- 
land ; no reordination had ever been practiced 
with respect to those who had received the impo- 
sition of hands in a regular church ; and hence it 
appears that the Church of England, whatever 
tenet might latterly have been broached in contro- 
versy, did not consider the ordinations of presbyters 
invalid" 



6 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

Macaulay, in his " History " (vol. i.132), states : 
— " Episcopal ordination was now (1662), for the 
first time, made an indispensable qualification for 
preferment." 

From the above facts, which cannot be gain- 
said, it is clear that the Church of England prac- 
tically acknowledged for more than a century, in 
the most open manner, the validity of orders not 
episcopal, and allowed her members to receive 
the sacraments, and ministrations of clergymen, 
without such orders. 

We have presented the testimony of seven 
Church of England bishops, presbyters, and lay- 
men, churchmen of all parties, clearly to the 
point, that " many ministers " — " more than one " 
— " numbers," " were instituted into benefices 
with cures," "enjoyed spiritual promotions and 
livings." " with the same capacity with others," 
" were acknowledged ministers," " were never re- 
ordained," for " no reordination had ever been 
practiced with respect to them," " from the very 
beginnings " of the Reformation in the Church of 
England. 

EDWARD VI. 

Moreover, during the same period, a Presbyte- 
rian Church composed of foreigners, with a Pres- 
byterian ministry, waS placed under the spiritual 
charge of the Bishop of London, and has thus re- 



MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 7 

mained till the present day. The patent granted 
by Edward VI., 1550, reads, " that by the ministers 
of the Church of the Germans, and other stran- 
gers, a sound interpretation of the most Holy Gos- 
pels, and the administration of the sacraments 
according to the Word of God and Apostolic cus- 
toms may exist" 

If such ministrations be invalid, how can that 
Church, her officers and rulers, be excused for such 
dereliction of duty ? 

In this view of the valid character of the min- 
istrations of the foreign Presbyterian ministers, 
the King was fully sustained by the venerable 
Cranmer. 

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. 

Archbishop Parker, in his " Antiquitates Britan- 
nicae " (p. 580), states : H Archbishop Cranmer, that 
he might strengthen the evangelical doctrine in 
the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, from 
which an infinite number of teachers might go 
forth for the instruction of the whole kingdom, 
called into England the most celebrated divines 
of foreign nations : Peter Martyr Vermellius, a 
Florentine, and Martin Bucer, a German, from 
Strasburg. The former taught at Oxford, the 
latter at Cambridge. "With the latter, also, Paul 
Fagius became Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge. 
And besides these, Immanuel Tremellius, Berna- 
dinus Ochine, Peter Alexander, Volerandus Pol- 



8 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

lanus, all of whom, with their wives and children, 
he maintained. Philip Melancthon and Musculus 
also were invited." 

The author of " Vox Ecclesiae " excepts to 
the statement in " True Churchmanship Vindi- 
cated," that these men were regarded as " minis- 
ters." But Parker continues : " Fagius soon died. 
The other two, by constant readings, sermons, and 
disputations, refuted popery and spread the gos- 
pel." 

In the " Zurich Letters " we find Peter of Peru- 
gia writing to Bullinger thus from Cambridge : 
" Martin Bucer, Bernadine, and Peter Martyr are 
most- actively laboring in their ministry." The 
Martyr Bradford, — whom of all the Reformers, 
the Romanists sought most earnestly to pervert 
to their creed, — in his farewell to Cambridge, 
exclaims, " Remember the readings and preach- 
ings of God's true prophet and preacher, Martin 
Bucer." 

Keble attempts to excuse the English Reform- 
ers, on the ground that they were affected by their 
"personal friendships and political sympathies" 
with foreigners ; that they had given up the argu- 
ment from " tradition," on which exclusive Epis- 
copacy is based ; and that " they wanted the full 
evidence of the Fathers, with which later genera- 
tions have been favored," especially a " genuine 
copy of the works of Ignatius." 

To this we reply, that the Reformation divines 



MODERATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 9 

were more fully read in the Fathers than our 
modern theologians, the patristic writings consti- 
tuting almost the sole Christian literature then 
extant ; that, though they differed essentially with 
respect to the office of tradition with this Oxford 
professor, nevertheless, tradition also sustains them 
in their views, as well as Holy Scripture. On 
motives of principle, as well as of sympathy and 
affection, they acted with ecclesiastical modera- 
tion, and framed our standards accordingly. 

Taking tradition as authority, how could they 
assert that episcopal orders were alone valid, 
when a large and important section of the Primi- 
tive Church, from apostolic times to the year 250, 
had neither episcopal consecration nor succes- 
sion. For, in one of the largest churches of 
antiquity, simple appointment by presbyters con- 
ferred all the rights of the primitive episcopate. 



CHAPTER n. 

THE PATRIARCHAL CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA FUR- 
NISHES PRIMITIVE PRECEDENT TO THE CHURCH 
OF ENGLAND WITH RESPECT TO THE VALIDITY OF 
ORDINATIONS IN CHURCHES DESTITUTE OF EPIS- 
COPAL CONSECRATION AND SUCCESSION. 

The portion of the Primitive Church to which 
we are to look for precedent to sustain the action 
of the Church of England in acknowledging 
ordinations without Episcopal succession to be 
valid is the patriarchal Church of Alexandria. 

In order to exhibit the important position of the 
Church and City of Alexandria, we give the lan- 
guage of a few of our standard writers : — 

DR. JOHN LORD. 

Professor John Lord, in his recent work, entitled 
« The Old Roman World," thus writes : " The 
ground-plan of this great city was traced by Alex- 
ander himself ; but it was not completed until the 
reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It continued to 
receive embellishments from nearly every mon- 
arch of the Lagian line. Its circumference was 
about fifteen miles ; the streets were regular, and 



THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA. H 

crossed one another at right angles, and were wide 
enough to admit both carriages and foot passen- 
gers. 

" The harbor was large enough to admit the 
largest fleet ever constructed ; its walls and gates 
were constructed with all the skill and strength 
known to antiquity ; its population numbered six 
hundred thousand, and all nations were repre- 
sented in its crowded streets. The wealth of the 
city may be inferred from the fact that in one 
year 6,250 talents, or more than $6,000,000, were 
paid to the public treasury for port dues. 

" The library was the largest in the world, and 
numbered over seven hundred thousand volumes, 
and this was connected with a museum, a menag- 
erie, a botanical garden, and various halls for lec- 
tures, altogether forming the most famous univer- 
sity in the empire. 

" The inhabitants were chiefly Greek, and had 
all their cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift. 
In a commercial point of view, it was the most 
important in the empire, and its ships whitened 
every sea. 

" Alexandria was of remarkable beauty, and was 
called by Ammianus, vertex omnium civitatum. 
Its dry atmosphere preserved for centuries the 
sharp outlines and gay colors of its buildings, 
some of which were remarkably imposing. 

" The Mausoleum of the Ptolemies, the High 
Court of Justice, the Stadium, the Gymnasium, 



12 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

the Palaestra, the Amphitheatre, and the Temple 
of the Caesars, called out the admiration of trav- 
ellers. The Emporium far surpassed the quays 
of the Tiber. But the most imposing structure 
was the Exchange, to which for eight hundred 
years all the nations sent their representatives. It 
was commerce which made Alexandria so rich 
and beautiful, and for which it was more distin- 
guished than both Tyre and Carthage. Unlike 
most commercial cities, it was intellectual ; and its 
schools of poetry, mathematics, medicine, philos- 
ophy, and theology, were more renowned than 
even those of Athens during the third and fourth 
centuries. For wealth, population, intelligence, 
and art, it was the second city of the world. It 
would be a great capital in these times " (pp. 89 
90). 

DR. WM. S. TYLER. 

Professor Tyler, in his fifth article on " Repre- 
sentative Cities," in " Hours at Home," October, 
1867, writing of Alexandria, says : " It was the 
mission of Alexandria to collect manuscripts ; to- 
revise editions of the classics ; to compose sys- 
tematic treatises on grammar, geography, and the 
mathematical and physical sciences; to found 
libraries and inaugurate universities ; to establish 
an exchange for the intellectual productions and 
literary wares of distant lands ; to criticise and 
compare the literature of different nations; to 



THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA. 13 

eclecticise, if I may so say, the philosophy of the 
Orient and the Occident, and even to mediate be- 
tween the religion of Greeks and barbarians, Jews 
and Gentiles. In short, to collect whatever was 
valuable, to select whatever was true and beautiful 
and good, and to perpetuate whatever was worth 
preserving ; this was the idea, this the aim of 
Alexandria, though, like all other human aims and 
ideas, it was imperfectly accomplished. Here the 
Alexandrian critics corrected and settled the text 
of Homer, the Bible of the ancient Greeks. Here, 
also, the seventy translated the Old Testament 
from Hebrew into Greek. Here, also, was the 
principal catechetical school and theological sem- 
inary of the early Christian Church. . . . The 
birthplace of the eloquent Apollos, the philosoph- 
ical Clement, the learned Origen, and the the- 
ological Athanasius ; the traditional place of the 
martyrdom and burial of the Evangelist Mark, 
and the probable source of those speculations 
touching i the Logos? to which the Apostle John 
alluded in the beginning of his Gospel ; it was 
in Alexandria that Christianity, wedded to philos- 
ophy, began to command the respect of the 
learned, armed herself with new weapons for the 
defense of the faith, and entered upon a new, and 
in some respects, a higher field of conflict and 
triumph. . . . 

" Christian Alexandria holds a conspicuous place 
in Ecclesiastical History. Alexandria gave the 



14 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

world the Old Testament in Greek, and in this 
and various other ways contributed largely to 
form the language of the New Testament — that 
copious, flexible, and expressive Hellenistic Greek 
in which the Gospel was earliest and most widely 
promulgated among the nations. Alexandria en- 
listed learning and philosophy in the service of 
religion, and gave to the Church its first theolog- 
ical school, and its most full, definite, and generally 
accepted creed." 

DR. GEORGE HOWE. 

Professor George Howe, in his " Bicentenary 
Discourse on Theological Education," 1844 (p. 
69), thus speaks of the Alexandrian Seminary : — 

" This school was taught by a succession of 
men eminent for learning, science, and piety. 
Among them were Pantaenus, Clement, and Ori- 
gen, men famous while they lived for their talents, 
learning, and influence. 

" The industry of these teachers, and of Origen 
in particular, was intense. Besides teaching the 
principal branches of theological study, and the 
exegesis of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, 
they added the Grecian literature, and the study 
of philosophy, and indeed everything which would 
discipline the minds of the young men, and pre- 
pare them the better for a life of Christian activ- 
ity. Clement says that he had many eminent 
men as his teachers ; one in Greece, who was an 



THE SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA. 15 

Ionian, another in Magna Grecia ; one from 
Coelosyria, another from Egypt ; others from the 
East, and of these, one from Assyria, another in 
Palestine, a Hebrew by descent. The last I met 
was the first in power : him I found concealed in 
Egypt, and rested satisfied. He was a true Sicil- 
ian bee, gathering the flowers of the Prophetic 
and Apostolic meadows, who engendered true 
knowledge in the minds of those who heard him. 
He thus describes Pantasnus, his revered prede- 
cessor in the Alexandrian School." 

HOSPINIAN. 

Hospinian, as quoted by Professor Emerson in 
his elaborate history of this school, in the " Bib- 
lical Repository" (vol. iv. 1834), remarks: — 

" Multitudes, renowned for learning and piety, 
issued forth from it, as from the Trojan horse, 
and applied themselves to the blessed work of the 
Lord in the churches of the East." 

DR. HASE. 

Dr. Hase, in his " Church History " (p. 117), 
graphically describes the most learned scholars of 
this most famous university, who succeeded Ori- 
gen: — 

" From the Alexandrian School proceeded those 
who represented the theology of their century. 
Athanasius, a didactic rather than an exegetical 
writer, who ingeniously and enthusiastically re- 



16 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

duced all Christianity to the simple doctrine of the 
divinity of Christ; and the three Cappadocians, — 
Gregory of Nyssa (died about 394), who, next to 
Origen, was most distinguished for his scientific 
profundity and originality; his brother Basil, the 
great metropolitan of Caesarea (died 379), equally 
zealous for science and monasticism, but more 
remarkable for his talents in the administration of 
ecclesiastical affairs ; and the abused friend of his 
youth, Gregory of Nazianzum (died 390), by in- 
clination and fortune so tossed between the tran- 
quillity of a contemplative life and the storms of 
ecclesiastical government, that he had no satisfac- 
tion in either, — neither a profound thinker nor a 
poet, but according to the aspirations of his youth 
an orator, frequently pompous and dry, but labor- 
ing as powerfully for the triumph of orthodoxy as 
for genuine practical Christianity. Next to these 
were Eusebius of Csesarea (died 340), whose 
simple but not artless style was like that of one 
whose knowledge was abundant, who was fond 
of peace, and disinclined to the new formulae of 
orthodoxy; and blind Didymus (died 395), in spirit 
and in faith the last faithful follower of Origen." 

DEAN STANLEY. 

" The most learned body assembled at Nicaea 
was the Church of Alexandria," writes Dean Stan- 
ley, in his " History of the Eastern Church." 
" The See of Alexandria was then the most im- 



THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 17 

portant in the whole Church. Alexandria, till the 
rise of Constantinople, was the most powerful 
city in the East. The prestige of its founder still 
clung to it. The Alexandrian Church was the 
only great seat of Christian learning. Its episco- 
pate was { the Evangelical See,' as founded by 
the Evangelist St. Mark. c The chair of St. 
Mark ' was, as it still is, the name of the patri- 
archal throne of Egypt. Its occupant, as we 
have seen, was the only potentate of the time who 
bore the name of ' Pope.' After the Council of 
Nicaea, he became the * judge of the world,' from 
his decisions respecting the celebration of Easter ; 
and the obedience paid to his judgment in all 
matters of learning, secular and sacred, almost 
equalled that paid in later days to the ecclesias- 
tical authority of the Popes of the West. The 
' head of the Alexandrian Church,' says Gregory 
Nazianzen, ' is the head of the world.' " 

In his own province, his jurisdiction was even 
more extensive than that of the Roman Pontiff. 
Not only did he consecrate all the bishops through- 
out his diocese, but no other bishop had any in- 
dependent power of ordination (p. 237). 

rev. Joseph bingham (died 1723). 

In his " Antiquities " (vol. i. p. 218), this learned 
author writes : — 

" I must here observe that the Primate of Alex- 
andria was the greatest metropolitan in the world, 

2 



18 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

both in the absoluteness of his power and the ex- 
tent of his jurisdiction. For he was not metro- 
politan of a single province, but of all the prov- 
inces of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, in which 
there were at least six large provinces, out of 
which sometimes above a hundred bishops were 
called to a provincial council. Alexander sum- 
moned near that number to the condemnation of 
Arius before the Council of Nice. And Athana- 
sius speaks of the same number meeting at other 
times ; particularly the Council of Alexandria, in 
339, which heard and justified the cause of Atha- 
nasius after his return from banishment, had al- 
most an hundred bishops in it, which was above 
thirty more than the Bishop of Rome's Libra, 
which was but sixty-nine. Nor was the Primate 
of Alexandria's power less than the extent of his 
jurisdiction ; for he not only ordained all his suffra- 
gan bishops, but had liberty to ordain presbyters 
and deacons in all churchesrthroughout the whole 
district. 

" M. Basnage and Launay will have it that he 
had the sole power of ordaining, and that not so 
much as a presbyter or deacon could be ordained 
without him. Valesius thinks his privilege was 
rather that he might ordain if he pleased, but not 
that he had the sole power of ordaining presbyters 
and deacons. But either way it was a great priv- 
ilege, and peculiar to the Bishop of Alexandria ; 
for no other metropolitan pretended to the like 
power besides himself." 



CHAPTER ni. 

t 

NO EPISCOPAL CONSECRATION OR SUCCESSION 
KNOWN IN THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA FOR 
MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AFTER ST. MARK. 

The fullest statement we possess with respect 
to the ordinations in the church at Alexandria is 
given by Eutychius, patriarch of that see, in the 
tenth century. The works of this author were 
translated into Latin, in part, by Selden, 1642, 
and afterwards in full by Pococke, 1659. 
Of this author, Mosheim writes : — 
" Among the Arabians no author bears a higher 
reputation than Eutychius, Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, whose annals, with several other productions 
of his pen, are still extant ; who cultivated the 
sciences of physic and theology with the greatest 
success, and cast a new light upon them both by 
his excellent writings." 

the patriarch eutychius (Tenth Century). 

In giving a history of this, his own see, Euty- 
chius mentions Mark the Evangelist as having 
appointed Hananias the first patriarch, and then 
proceeds : — 



20 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

" Moreover he appointed twelve presbyters 
with Hananias, who were to remain with the pa- 
triarch, so that when the patriarchate was vacant 
they might elect one of the twelve presbyters, 
upon whose head the other eleven might place 
their hands and bless him and create him patri- 
arch, and then choose some excellent man and 
appoint him presbyter with themselves in the 
place of him who was thus made patriarch, that 
thus there might always be twelve. Nor did this 
custom respecting the presbyters, namely, that 
they should create their patriarch from the twelve 
presbyters, cease at Alexandria until the times of 
Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was of 
the number of the three hundred and eighteen. 
But he forbade the presbyters to create the patri- 
arch for the future, and decreed that when the 
patriarch was dead the bishops should meet to- 
gether and ordain the patriarch. Thus, that an- 
cient custom, by which the patriarch used to be 
created by the presbyters, disappeared, and in its 
place succeeded the ordinance for the creation of 
the patriarch by the bishops." 

George Elmacinus, a later Egyptian writer, 
whose works were translated by Erpenius, con- 
firms this testimony of Eutychius. We have, 
however, the confirmation of his statements by 
more ancient writers. 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 21 

severus (Tenth Century). 

Severus, as quoted by Renaudot, both histo- 
rians of the patriarchs of Alexandria, states that 
after the death of Theonas " the priests and peo- 
ple were collected together at Alexandria, and 
laid their hands on Peter, his son in the faith, 
and disciple, a priest, and placed him in the patri- 
archal throne of Alexandria, according to the 
command of Theonas, in the tenth year of the 
Emperor Diocletian." 

Hilary, OR Ambrose (Fourth Century). 

The author of a commentary on St. Paul's 
Epistles, by some supposed to be Hilary, and by 
others Ambrose, both of the fourth century, on 
Ephesians iv. 2, writes : — 

" The Apostle calls Timothy, created by him 
a presbyter, a bishop (for the first presbyters were 
called bishops), that when he departed the one 
next to him might succeed him. Moreover, in 
Egypt the presbyters (consignant) confirm, if a 
bishop be not present." 

A CONTEMPORARY. 

Another author, whose works are printed with 
those of St. Augustine, and supposed to be his 
contemporary, says : — 

" In Alexandria, and through the whole of 
Egypt, if there is no bishop, a presbyter conse- 
crates." 



22 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

ST. jerome (Fourth Century). 

The most important witness, however, one 
born within the century succeeding, is St. Jerome, 
confessedly the most learned of the ancients, who 
in his Epistle to Evangelus, after quoting passages 
of Scripture, to show that bishops and presbyters, 
as to their sacerdotal character, are the same, re- 
marks : — 

" But that afterwards one was chosen to be 
over the rest ; this was done to prevent schism, 
lest each one drawing the Church after him should 
break it up. For at Alexandria, also, from Mark 
the Evangelist to the bishops Heraclas and Dio- 
nysius, the presbyters always called one elected 
among themselves, and placed in a higher rank, 
their bishop ; just as an army may constitute its 
general, or deacons may elect one of themselves, 
whom they know to be diligent, and call him 
archdeacon. For what does a bishop .do, with 
the exception of ordination, which a presbyter 
may not do ? " 

It is well known that Jerome teaches the same 
origin for Episcopacy, in his commentary on 
Titus i. 5, where he says : — 

" As the presbyters, therefore, know that they 
are subject by the custom of the Church to him 
who is placed over them, so let bishops know 
that they are greater than presbyters more by 
custom than by any real appointment of the 



TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 23 

Lord, and that they ought to govern the Church 
along with the presbyters," etc. 

Such is the testimony of antiquity in regard 
to the ordinations in the patriarchate of Alex- 
andria in the times immediately succeeding the 
Apostles. 

Do we ever read of the validity of the minis- 
try of the Church of Alexandria as denied by the 
rest of the Primitive Church ? If not, then is 
the Church of England sustained in her course 
in this respect by primitive precedent, and those 
who deny the validity of presbyterian orders, im- 
pugn the action of this Church, and of the Prim- 
itive Church likewise. Their theory is a modern 
innovation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

TESTIMONY OF ENGLISH REFORMERS. 

This custom of the Church of Alexandria was 
well known to the English Reformers and Revis- 
ers, and is conceded by the ablest modern writers. 

ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT (died 1604). 

This writer, in his f< Answer to the Admonition" 
of Cartwright, which was revised and approved 
by Archbishop Parker, Bishops Cox, Cooper, and 
others, and according to Strype, " may be es- 
teemed and applied to as one of the public books 
of the Church of England concerning her profes- 
sion and principles, and as being of the like au- 
thority in respect to its worship and government, 
in opposition to the Disciplinarians, as Bishop 
Jewel's 'Apology and Defense,' in respect to the 
Reformation and doctrine of it, in opposition to 
the Papists," while contending for the primitive 
origin of Episcopacy, does not deny the state- 
ments of Jerome with regard to Alexandria. 
They were familiar to his mind, as they were to 
all the divines of that period. In vol. ii. p. 222, 
he writes : — 



TESTIMONY OF ENGLISH REFORMERS. 25 

• u The same Hierome, in his 'Epistles ad Evag.f 
teacheth that the cause that one was chosen among 
the bishops to rule over the rest was to meet with 
schisms, lest every one according to his own fancy 
should tear in pieces the Church of Christ ; and 
says farther, that in Alexandria," etc. He then 
quotes the passage referred to. 

Vol. ii. p. 251, Whitgift writes : — 

" Every bishop is a priest, but every priest hath 
not the name and title of a bishop, in that mean- 
ing that Jerome in this place taketh the name of 
bishop. For his words be these : ' In Alexan- 
dria, from Mark the Evangelist,' etc. . . . c Nei- 
ther shall you find this word episcopus commonly 
used but for that priest that is in degree over and 
above the rest, notwithstanding episcopus be often- 
times called presbyter; because presbyter is the 
more general name,' " etc. 

As this combined testimony of Whitgift, Par- 
ker, Cox, Cooper, and others, is of such value, we 
give further extracts : — 

" It is plain that any one certain form or kind 
of external government, perpetually to be ob- 
served, is nowhere in the Scripture prescribed to 
the Church. . . . This is the opinion of the best 
writers ; neither do I know any learned man of a 
contrary judgment." — Whitgift (vol. iii. p. 215). 

" One church is not bound of necessity in all 
things to follow another; only the Church of 
Rome is so arrogant and proud to challenge that 
prerogative" (p. 317). 



26 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

" The doctrine taught and professed by our 
bishops at this day is much more perfect, and 
sounder than it commonly was in any age after 
the Apostles' time " (ii. p. 471). 

What Whitgift, Parker, Cox, and Cooper 
thought of the " Via Media " may here be learned. 
When Cartwright charged the Church of England 
with a closer agreement with the Papists than 
with the Reformed churches, Whitgift replied, — 

" Wherein do we agree with the Papists ? or 
wherein do we differ from the Reformed churches ? 
With these we have all points of doctrine and 
substance common ; from the other we dissent, in 
the most part both of doctrine and ceremonies. 
From what spirit come these bold and untrue 
speeches ? " (vol. ii. p. 472.) 

" Beware of an ambitious morosity, and take 
heed of a new popedom. . . . You may not 
bind us to follow any particular church, neither 
ought you to consent to any such new servitude " 
(p. 454). 

BULLINGER'S " DECADES." 

We give an extract from the "Decades" of this 
learned foreigner, inasmuch as his writings were 
indorsed by Archbishop Whitgift. There may 
not have been an entire agreement between the 
two authors on all points concerning church gov-' 
ernment, but, at the same time, what modern ex- 
clusive Episcopal writer would have commended 



TESTIMONY OF BULLINGER. 27 

the " Decades " to the study of the clergy, without 
reservation ? We have in this act of Whitgift 
an evidence of the confidence entertained by the 
English Divines in their Continental co-workers. 

Henry Bullinger was preacher of the Cathe- 
dral of Zurich from 1531 to 1574. He enter- 
tained the English exiles under Mary. Such 
was his influence that he was appealed to as 
umpire in the Vestiarian controversy ; and his 
decision, that the use of vestments was scriptural 
and proper, went far to settle the question. 

Whitgift, in 1586, issued the following archi- 
episcopal order : — 

" Every minister having cure . . . shall, 
before the second day of February next, provide 
a Bible, and Bullinger's i Decades 5 in Latin or 
English, and a paper book, and shall every day 
read over one chapter of the Holy Scriptures, 
and note the principal contents thereof in his 
paper book, and shall every week read over one 
sermon in said 4 Decades,' and note likewise the 
chief matters therein contained in said paper." 

Bullinger, in his fifth Decade, third sermon, 
writes : — 

" But in the order of bishops and elders from 
the beginning there was singular humility, charity, 
and concord ; no contention, no strife for prerog- 
ative, or titles, or dignity ; for all acknowledged 
themselves to be ministers of one Master, coequal 
in all things touching office or charge. He made 



28 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

them unequal not in office, but in gifts, by the 
excellency of gifts. ... In process of time 
all things of ancient soundness, humility, and 
simplicity vanished away; while some things 
are turned upside down : some things either of 
their own accord were out of use, or else were 
taken away by deceit : some things are added to. 
Verily not many ages after the death of the Apos- 
tles there was seen a far other hierarchy (or gov- 
ernment) of the Church than was from the begin- 
ning ; although those beginnings seem to be more 
tolerable than at this day all of this same order 
are. St. Hierome saith, ' In time past churches 
w 7 ere governed with the common council and ad- 
vice of the elders : afterward it was decreed that 
one of the elders, being chosen, should be set 
over the others : unto whom the whole care of 
the Church should pertain, and that the seeds 
of schism should be taken away.' Thus much 
he : In every city and country, therefore, he that 
was most excellent was placed above the rest. 
His office was to be superintendent, and to have 
the oversight of the minister, and of the whole 
(lock. He had not (as we even now understand 
out of Cyprian's words) dominion over his fel- 
lows in office, or other elders; but, as the Consul 
in the Senate-house was placed to demand and 
gather together the voices of the Senators, and to 
defend the laws and privileges, and to be careful 
lest there should arise factions among the Sena- 



TESTIMONY OF BULLINGER. 29 

tors, even so no other was the office of a bishop 
in the Church; in all other things he was but 
equal with the other ministers. But had not 
the arrogancy of the ministers and ambition of 
the bishops in the times that followed further 
increased, we would not further speak against 
them. And St. Hierome affirmeth that c That 
preferment of bishops sprang not by God's ordi- 
nance, but by the ordinance of men.' " 

In the second sermon, Bullinger states : — 

" St. Hierome judgeth rightly, saying, that by 
tjae* custom of man, and not by the authority of 
God, some one of the elders should be placed 
over the rest, and called a bishop ; whereas of old 
time an elder or minister and a bishop were of 
equal honor, power, and dignity." 

He then refers to the letter to Evangelus in 
which Jerome alludes to the Church of Alexan- 
dria. 

If Whitgift had regarded episcopal government 
as essential to the existence of a church, he would, 
reasonably, have guarded his readers against the 
statements of Bullinger on this point, just as the 
American House of Bishops, when recommend- 
ing " Doddridge's Commentary " to the perusal 
of candidates for orders, directed attention at the 
same time to this author's different view with re- 
spect to church government. 



30 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 



DR. JOHN RAINOLDS. 



There is a striking similarity in the statement 
of Bullinger, to that given by Dr. Rainolds, Pro- 
fessor of Divinity at Oxford, as to the origin of 
Episcopacy. 

Archbishop Usher presented it to the public in 
1641, in a Tract entitled, " The Judgment of Dr. 
Rainolds, touching the Original of Episcopacy, 
more largely confirmed out of Antiquity." As 
both Rainolds and Usher had read all the Fa- 
thers, and were respectively esteemed the most 
learned men of their times, we have no account of 
this matter to which credence can be more im- 
plicitly given. What Augustine said of Jerome, 
may be justly applied to these profound scholars : 
u What they were ignorant of, no man knew." 
The following is Rainolds' statement : — 

" Presbyters were constituted bishops by the 
Holy Ghost, that they might superintend and 
feed the flock ; and that this might be more effec- 
tually accomplished by their united counsel and 
consent, they were accustomed to meet together 
in one company, and to elect one as president of 
the assembly, and moderator of the proceedings; 
whom Christ in the Revelation denominates the 
angel of the church, and to whom he writes 
those things which he meant him to signify to 
the others. And this is the person whom the 
Fathers afterwards, in the Primitive Church, de- 
nominated the bishop." (Conference, ad Hart, 



TESTIMONY OF RAINOLDS. 31 

c \p. iv. p. 47). The tract may be found in Ush- 
er's Works, vol. v. p. 75. In this connection 
we give the important letter of Dr. Rainolds to 
Sir Francis Knollys, Lord Treasurer of England, 
who wrote to inquire whether Dr. Bancroft was 
right when he asserted, at St. Paul's Cross, " that 
bishops were superior governors over their breth- 
ren, by God's ordinance, i. e., jure divino ?" To 
this Rainolds replied, in what is the oldest de- 
fense on record of moderate primitive Episcopacy, 
against its first Protestant High Church champion 
(though Bancroft was far from holding the preva- 
lent exclusive view) : " It is one thing to say that 
there ought to be no difference between them," 
etc., ..." another thing to say that by the Word 
of God there is no difference betwixt them but by 
the order and custom of the Church," which St. 
Austin saith in effect himself. . . . 

" When Harding, the Papist, alleged these very 
witnesses to prove the opinion of bishops and 
priests being the same, according to Scripture, 
to be heresy, our learned countryman of good 
memory, Bishop Jewel, cited to the contrary 
Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and St. Austin 
himself, concluding his answer with these words : 
" All these and other more holy fathers, with St. 
Paul, for thus saying, by Harding's advice, must 
be held for heretics." 

" Michael Medina, a man of -great account in 
the Council of Trent, more ingenuous therein than 



32 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

many other Papists, affirmed not only the former 
ancient writers alleged by Bishop Jewel, but also 
another Jerome, Theodoret, Primasius, Sedulius, 
Theophylact, who were of the same mind, . . . 
with whom agree likewise CEcumenius, and An- 
selmus, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another An- 
selmus, and Gregory, and Gratia n, and after them 
how many, it being once enrolled in the canon law 
for sound and Catholic doctrine-, and thereupon 
taught publicly by learned men, all which do bear 
witness against Dr. Bancroft of the point in ques- 
tion, that it was not condemned for a heresy by the 
general consent of the whole Church. . . . Where- 
to it may be added, that they also who have labored 
about the reforming of the Church, these five 
hundred years, have taught that all pastors, be they 
entitled bishops or priests, have equal authority 
and power by God's Word. First, the Waldenses, 
next Massilius Patavinus, then WicklifTe and his 
scholars, afterwards Huss ; last of all Luther, 
Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger, Musculus, and others, 
who might be reckoned particularly in great num- 
ber such as were with us ; both Bishops Jewel 
and Pilkington, and the Queen's Professors of 
Divinity in our Universities, Drs. Humphrey and 
Whittaker, and other learned men. Bradford, 
Lambert, Fox, and Fulke, do consent therein ; so 
in foreign nations all whom I have read treating 
of this matter, and many more whom I have not 
read. 



TESTIMONY OF RAINOLDS. 33 

" But why do I speak of particular persons ? It 
is Ahe common judgment of the Reformed 
Churches of Helvetia, Savoy, France, Scotland, 
Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries, 
and our own. I hope Dr. Bancroft will not say 
that all these have approved that for sound doc- 
trine which was condemned by the general con- 
sent of the whole Church for heresy in a most 
flourishing time. I hope he will acknowledge 
that he was overseen when he avouched the supe- 
riority which bishops have among us over the 
clergy to be God's own ordinance." 

This testimony of Rainolds, to a point conge- 
nial to the one untler consideration, it would seem 
were conclusive as to the view of the Church of 
England with respect to the origin of Episcopacy. 
The only reply which is given, is that " Rainolds 
was a Puritan." A strict conformist to the 
Church of England all his days, and in his last 
hours a recipient of the Communion according to 
its rites, Rainolds was selected by King James to 
present the demands of the Reforming party of 
the Church. The changes he desired were mainly 
those made by Bishop White in our American 
Prayer-Book. To an impartial student no Chris- 
tian name in history is more worthy than this 
divine, who could not be tempted by an episco- 
pate offered him by his sovereign ; who was long 
the revered instructor of the English clergy, and 
honored in being the tutor of Richard Hooker; 
3 



34 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

a man who, far in advance of his age, sought by 
moderate counsels to avert the coming storm, and 
whose last legacy to the Church was the standard 
English version of the Bible, made by his mon- 
arch at his earnest request. The soul of this true 
evangelical churchman went to its reward while 
appropriately engaged in the preparation of this 
greatest surviving monument of the Reformation. 

DR. ANDREW WILLET (died 1621). 

This writer, for his acquirements, was called " a 
miracle of learning." He was chaplain to Prince 
Henry and Prebend of Ely. Bishop Hall includes 
him among the clergy of England, who were " the 
world's wonder." His greatest work is the " Syn- 
opsis PapismiP 

This work, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and 
afterward to James I., passed through five editions 
under the royal license. In 1634 an edition was 
issued "by the authority of His Majesty's royal 
letters-patent," which state " that it hath been 
seen and allowed by the Lords the Reverend 
Bishops, and hath also ever since been in great 
esteem in both Universities; and also much de- 
sired by all the learned, both of our clergy and 
laity, throughout our dominions." From this 
important work we quote largely. Vol. iii. p. 
58, Dr. Willet writes : a To the ecclesiastical 
policy in the advancing of the dignity of the 
bishops these things (of human appointment) do 



TESTIMONY OF WILLET. 35 

pertain. First of all, St. Hierome saith of confir- 
mation committed only to bishops, ' Know that 
this observation is rather for the honor of their 
priesthood than by the necessity of any law.' 

" Secondly, the Council of Aquisgr^ne (cap. 8) 
saith, that the ordination and consecration of 
ministers is now reserved to the chief minister 
only for authority's sake. 

" Fourthly, the jurisdiction of the Church, 
which, in time past, Hierome saith, was commit- 
ted to the Senate or College of Presbyters, was 
afterwards, to avoid schism, devolved to the 
Bishop. And of this Senate mention is made in 
the Decrees. St. Hierome saith : " At Alexan- 
dria, from the Evangelist Mark, down to the 
bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters 
always gave the name of bishop to one whom 
they elected from themselves, and placed in a 
higher degree ; in the same way as an army may 
create its general, or the deacons should choose 
an industrious man whom they make their arch- 
deacon. (Hierome ad Evang.) So it should seem 
that the very election of a bishop in those days, 
ivithout any other circumstances, was his ordina- 
tion." 

Speaking of the Greek Church, on p. 72, he 
writes : " Though they yielded the supremacy to 
the bishop as the chief, yet the presbyters were 
joined with them in the regiment of the Church ; 
the sole administration of the keys was not in the 



36 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

bishop. The same, also, was the custom of the 
South Church, as Jerome writeth, how in Alex- 
andria, from Mark the Evangelist unto Heraclas 
and Dionysius, ' The presbyters did call one 
chosen from amongst them, and placed in an 
higher degree their bishop.' (Hierome ad Evang.) 
By the which it appeareth, that the Oollege of the 
Presbyters did elect and choose their bishop, and 
he was a prime man among them ; but the other 
were not excluded. Ambrose testifieth as much 
of the custom of the Egyptian Church : c The 
first presbyters were called bishops, and the first 
removing, the next succeeded. In Egypt the 
presbyters, the bishop not being present, did con- 
firm ; but because the next presbyters were found 
unworthy to hold the primacy or first place, the 
manner was changed by the provision of a council, 
that not order, but merit and worthiness should 
make a bishop ' (in 4th ad Ephes.). It seemeth 
then that the custom of the Egyptian Church at 
the first was to make the bishop only the prime 
or first man of the presbytery ; the change that 
followed was by synodical constitutions. And 
some evidence yet remaineth of that ancient 
ecclesiastical government to this day in the Ethi- 
opic Church, where the patriarch hath always 
twelve ecclesiastical persons his assistants, with 
whom he communicateth touching ecclesiastical 
affairs." 

Dr. Willet, on p. 53, quotes St. Ambrose as say- 



TESTIMONY OF WILLET. 37 

ing : " He doth place the ordination of deacon * 
after a bishop. Why ? Because there is one 
ordination of a bishop and a priest, for both of 
them is a minister, yet the Bishop is first among 
the priests." 

" St. Chrysostom useth the same reason: ' There 
is almost no difference between a bishop and a 
priest, because that unto priests the care of the 
Church is committed, and that which the Apostle 
said of bishops doth agree unto priests.' " 

Page 47, he writes: " I come now to deliver 

our own opinion The distinction of 

bishops and priests, as it is now received, cannot 
be directly proved out of Scripture ; yet it is very 
necessary for the policy of the Church to avoid 
schism, and to preserve it in unity. Of this judg- 
ment, Bishop Jewel against Harding, showeth both 
Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Jerome to have been 
(Defens. Apolg. p. 248). And amongst the rest, 
St. Jerome thus writeth : ' That the Apostle 
teacheth, evidently, that bishops and priests were 
the same. Yet he holdeth this distinction to be 
necessary for the government of the Church. 
That one afterward was chosen to be set over the 
rest ; it was done to be a remedy against schism ' 
(ad Evang.). To this opinion, St. Jerome subscrib- 
ed — Bishop Jewel in the place before quoted, 
and another most reverend prelate of our Church, 
(Bishop Whitgift) — in these words : * I know 
these names to be confounded in the Scriptures ; 



38 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

but I speak according to the manner and custom 
of the Church ever since the Apostles' time ' 
(Defen. Answ. Admonit., p. 383), Which saying 
is agreeable to that of St. Augustine (Epist. xix. 
ad Hieron.) : c According to the names of honor, 
which the use or custom of the Church hath ob- 
tained, a bishop is greater than a priest' So that 
Augustine himself, who was no Arian, doth found 
this distinction rather upon ancient custom than 
Scripture." Page 52, " Michael Medina, a Papist, 
thinketh that both Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, 
Chrysostom, were in the same heresy with Arius. 
It may easily be disproved. Firstly, seeing Augus- 
tine with the rest held Arius to be a heretic, how 
could they condemn that for heresy in another 
which they themselves maintained ? Secondly, 
it is not like that the Church, which had con- 
demned that for heresy in Arius, would tolerate it 
in the rest. Thirdly, there is great difference be- 
tween Arius' opinion and theirs, for he would have 
no difference at all between a bishop and a priest. 
The Fathers allowed a difference, holding it to be 
profitable for the peace of the Church ; they only 
affirmed, that this distinction was rather author- 
ized by the ancient practice of the Church, than 
by any direct place of Scripture." 

We have here the testimony of Dr. Willet with 
respect to the view of the Church of England 
in regard to episcopal ordination (" our own opin- 
ion "), as he terms it, expressed with the approval 



TESTIMONY OF WILLET. 39 

of Elizabeth and James, and of the bishops and 
universities of England. He quotes, as sustain- 
ing the same opinion, Bishop Jewel's " Apol- 
ogy," a standard authority, and also Bishop Whit- 
gift's " Answer to the Admonition," making the 
assertion during the lifetime of the latter author. 
As no other writer has discoursed more clearly, 
and more ably on these topics which so deeply 
concern the peace of all churches, than Dr. Wil- 
let, in his " Synopsis," we give another quota- 
tion from p. 55 : " Although it cannot be denied 
but that the government of bishops, according to 
the use of the primitive Church, is very profitable 
for the preserving of unity, yet dare we not con- 
demn the churches of Geneva, Helvetia, Ger- 
many, and Scotland, that have received another 
form of ecclesiastical government, as the Papists 
proudly affirm all churches which have not such 
bishops as theirs are, to be no churches. Where- 
fore I cannot conclude that this special form of 
ecclesiastical government is absolutely prescribed 
in the Word ; for then all those churches which 
have not that prescript form, whether of bishops 
or others, should be condemned as erroneous 
churches. So then here is the difference between 
our adversaries the Papists and us. . They say 
that it is of necessity to salvation to be subject to 
the Pope, and to bishops and archbishops under 
him, as necessarily prescribed in the Word ; but 
so do not our bishops and archbishops, which is 



40 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

a notable difference between the bishops of the 
popish church and of the . Reformed Churches. 
(Defens. Answ. Admonition, p. 382). 

" Wherefore, as we condemn not those Reformed 
Churches which have retained another form of 
ecclesiastical government, so neither are they to 
censure our Church, for holding still the ancient 
regiment of bishops, purged from the ambitious 
and superstitious inventions of the popish prel- 
acy. Let every church use that form which best 
fitteth their state ; in external matters every 
church is free, not one bound to the prescription 
of another, so they measure themselves by the 
will of the Word, for if any church shall seem to 
prescribe unto another in those things wherein 
they are left free, that saying of the Apostle may 
be fitly applied against them (1 Cor. xiv. 36), i Did 
the Word of God spring from you, or came it 
unto you only ? ' God may give unto one church 
wisdom out of the Word, to know what is best 
for their state, as well as to another. And so I 
conclude this point with that saying of St. Augus- 
tine to the Donatist bishops : < Hold that which 
you hold : you have your sheep, I have my sheep ; 
be not troublesome to my sheep, I am not trouble- 
some to yours ' (Exposit. 2, in Psal. xxi.). So 
may we say to our sisters, the Reformed Churches, 
and they likewise to us : Let them hold that gov- 
ernment they have; we do not molest them in 
their course, neither let them molest us in ours." 



TESTIMONY OF WILLET. 41 

As we are defending in this work the practice 
of the Church of England for one hundred years, 
in allowing the validity of presbyterian ordina- 
tion, we may be excused if we quote further from 
this work of Dr. Willet, which has the imprima- 
tur of the sovereign heads of the Church of 
England, the bishops and the universities, and 
which has more fully and satisfactorily treated 
of this subject than any other work of that period. 

Volume vi. p. 368, Dr. Willet writes : " As the 
one hundred and eleventh error, the Papists hold 
that they are neither priests nor deacons which 
are not ordained of bishops. Neither is it true 
that there are no ministers but by the ordination 
of bishops, for this were to condemn all those 
Reformed Churches of Helvetia, Belgia, Geneva, 
with others which have not received the form of 
ecclesiastical government. Undoubtedly where 
godly bishops are, there no ordination is to be 
had without them, as in the Church of England ; 
but every church having not the same office, but 
others equivalent or correspondent thereunto, hath 
full authority in itself to ordain ministers in such 
order and manner as the Church hath received, 
agreeable to the "Word of God. So that we doubt 
not but that- all the Reformed Churches profess- 
ing the gospel have true* and lawful ministers, 
though they observe not all the same manner in 
the election and ordaining them. And this is the 
general consent of the churches themselves." 



42 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

He then quotes, among others, the " Anglican 
Confession : " " We say that the minister ought 
lawfully, duly, and orderly to be preferred to that 
office of the Church of God." It may be re- 
marked here that in these words we have an au- 
thorized interpretation of the Nineteenth Article. 

" This, then, is the judgment of the Reformed 
Churches, — that every church is not tied to the 
same manner of ordination of ministers, so that 
it be agreeable to the Word of God; but accord- 
ing to this rule every church may make choice of 
that form and order which is most agreeable to 
their state, so that when the calling of bishops is 
received, by them ministers must enter; where 
there are none, the calling of the church must be 
followed. Our arguments and reasons are these : 

" First, out of Scripture, Acts xiii. 3, certain 
prophets and teachers at Antioch lay hands upon 
Paul and Barnabas. The Rhemists gather here- 
upon "that they were ordered, admitted, and con- 
secrated by them." Annot. in hunc locum (which 
we say not, but they were only sent out to the 
execution of their office, being before chosen of 
the Spirit) ; but hence it followeth, that as at An- 
tioch, there being no Apostles, but only prophets 
and teachers, to lay hands upon Paul, the rest did 
it ; so those churches where there are no bishops, 
the right of ordaining ministers may be executed 
by others lawfully appointed of the Church. 

" If this were not so, these inconveniences 



TESTIMONY OF WILLET. 43 

would ensue : Firstly, that all these Reformed 
Churches should have no true ministers, being 
without episcopal ordination. Secondly, that 
they must either be denied to be churches, or else 
a true church may be without the power of ordi- 
nation, which is in nowise to be granted. Third- 
ly, that those excellent men, Luther, Melancthon, 
Calvin, with others, extraordinarily raised up of 
God for the propagation of the Gospel, should 
.not have been true ministers because they entered 
not by that ordination." 

On p. 376, quoting again from Jerome, he adds : 
" To this it is further added by a reverend learned 
man, now a bishop of our Church ; so at length 
by custom presbyters were utterly excluded from 
all advice and counsel, whereof Ambrose com- 
plaineth, and bishops only intermeddled with the 
regiment of the Church. This manner of subjec- 
tion in presbyters, and prelation in bishops, grew 
only in continuance of time, and not by any ordi- 
nance of Christ or his Apostles. See more of this 
matter on difference of ministers." This we have 
before presented. 

Thus we may see plainly and unmistakably, 
what was the view of the Church of England on 
the point of ordination, down to the year 1634, 
the very year in which Archbishop Laud, first of 
Protestants, broke the unity of the Church by re- 
questing the English Ambassador at Paris to 
withdraw from the Presbyterian ministrations. 



44 THE PKIMITIYE EIRENICON. 

For, previous to this event, intercommunion be- 
tween all the Protestant bodies was on terms of 
entire equality, with no disturbance on the point 
of church government. This was clearly estab- 
lished at the Synod of Dort, 1618, by the recep- 
tion of the Holy Communion by Bishop Carleton, 
Drs. Hall, Davenant, and Ward, of the Church of 
England, in common with the rest of the deputies, 
at the hands of Dr. Bogermann, the Presbyterian 
moderator. " There is no place on earth like thq. 
Synod of Dort ; no place where I should so much 
like to dwell," said Dr. Hall, afterwards the dis- 
tinguished Bishop of Norwich. Willet's " Syn- 
opsis," which is sustained by the statements of 
Jewel's " Apology," and Whitgift's " Answer," 
establishes clearly the moderate and Catholic 
principles of the Church of England. Thus the 
doctrine and the practice of this Church are seen 
to be in full accordance with each other, as both 
were consonant with the principles and practice 
of the Primitive Church. 



CHAPTER V. 

WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

We have given proof that the revisers of the 
standards of the Church of England under Eliza- 
beth and her most prominent divines, were ac- 
quainted with the historical fact that the Church 
of Alexandria, while maintaining episcopal gov- 
ernment, was without episcopal consecration and 
succession for two centuries, from the time of its 
founder, Mark the Evangelist. This Church, fol- 
lowing primitive customs, allowed such ordination 
to be valid. 

To strengthen our position, we proceed to give 
the concessions of distinguished later divines — 
two of the seventeenth and four of the present 
century. 

archbishop usher (died 1655). 

For the first half of the seventeenth century we 
present Archbishop Usher as a witness of the 
views of the divines of that period, himself confess- 
edly the most learned of them all. As a man who 
had read all the fathers, Greek and Latin, Usher 
could not fail to be acquainted with the facts here 



46 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

made prominent. Richard Baxter, in his " Life " 
(p. 206), writes of Usher : " I asked him also, in 
his judgment, about the validity of presbyterian 
ordination, which he asserted, and told me that 
the king asked him, at the Isle of Wight, ' where 
he found in antiquity that presbyters alone or- 
dained any.' And that he answered, c I can show 
your majesty more even, where presbyters alone 
successively ordained bishops,' and instanced in 
Hierome's words, Epist. ad Evagrium, of the 
presbyters of Alexandria choosing and making 
their own bishop, from the days of Mark to 
Heraclas and Dionysius." 

Usher, it is well known, held that the bishops 
differed from the presbyters, not in order, but 
simply in degree. " The intrinsical power of 
ordaining," he writes, " proceedeth not from juris- 
diction, but only from order. But a presbyter 
hath the same order in specie with a bishop. 
Ergo, a presbyter hath equally an intrinsical 
power to give orders, and is equal to him in the 
power of order ; the bishop having no higher 
degree in respect of retention or extension of the 
character of orders, though he hath a higher 
degree, i. e. a more eminent place in respect of 
authority and jurisdiction and spiritual regimen." 
Appendix to " Parr's Life," p. 6, ed. 1686. " The 
Lord Primate was always of this opinion," says 
Parr. He quotes him as saying : " Howsoever, 
I must needs think that the churches which have 



TESTIMONY OF USHER. 47 

no bishops are thereby become very much defec- 
tive in their government, and that the churches 
in France, who, living under a Popish power, 
cannot do what they would, are more excusable 
in this defect than the Low Countries, that live 
under a free State. Yet, for the testifying my 
communion with these churches (which I do love 
and honor as true members of the Church uni- 
versal), I do profess that, with like affection, I 
should receive the blessed sacrament at the hands 
of the Dutch ministers, if I were in Holland, as 
I should do at the hands of the French ministers, 
if I were in Charenton." 

This language is the more important to our 
purpose, inasmuch as but recently, in 1634, Arch- 
bishop Laud, the father of exclusive Episcopacy, 
had desired the English Ambassador to France 
not to attend the preaching and sacraments of 
the Presbyterian ministers at Charenton, on the 
ground that they had no valid ordination. 

BISHOP STILLINGFLEET (died 1699). 

We pass now to the testimony of one of the 
most distinguished divines of the latter half of 
the same century, Bishop Stillingfleet, about 
whom there has been as much controversy as 
concerning any divine of his Church. The testi- 
mony of Stillingfleet is the more forcible, as he 
belongs to that class of Episcopalians, who, led 
astray from their early moderation, have adopted 



48 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

more stringent views of Episcopacy in after life. 
Stillingfleet, however, like many others, on further 
reflection, returned to the comprehensive views 
he had so ably presented in his " Irenicum." 
Stillingfleet, after he was made dean, in 1680, 
used strong language towards the non-conform- 
ists, and advanced higher claims for Episcopacy, 
and intimated that he would not then have made 
all the concessions which he had advanced in his 
" Irenicum," written in 1662. He wrote, how- 
ever, in the heat of a most violent controversy — 
" that age of fierce and savage controversy, of 
the tomahawk and scalping-knife," as Rogers 
terms it. 

In the last years of his life, Stillingfleet revised, 
and endorsed entire, Bishop Burnet's work on 
" The Articles," a work most obnoxious to ex- 
clusive churchmen, wherein the author asserts, 
" Whatsoever some hotter spirits have thought 
of this since that time, yet we are very sure that 
not only those who penned the Articles, but the 
body of the Church, half an age after, did, not- 
withstanding those irregularities, acknowledge 
the foreign Churches, so constituted to be true 
Churches as to all the essentials of a Church, 
though they had been at first irregularly formed, 
and continued still to be in an imperfect state. 
And, therefore, the general words in which this 
part of the Article (23d) is penned, seem to have 
been designed on purpose not to exclude them." 
This language Stillingfleet fully endorsed. 



TESTIMONY OF STILLINGFLEET. 49 

Ten years previous, he united with Tillotson, 
Tennison, Patrick, and others, in an earnest 
attempt for a comprehension of dissenters, and 
one of the conditions of the plan was that " for- 
eign Presbyterian ministers should be received 
without reordination." Birch, in his " Life of Til- 
lotson, 5 ' gives the particulars. The arrangement 
was defeated by the bigotry and intolerance of 
the lower House of Convocation ; in consequence, 
England has presented the sad anomaly, for two 
centuries, of a national Church rejected by half 
the population. 

The equally distinguished John Howe, in reply 
to Stillingfleet after his defection, writes: — 
" Somewhat it is likely he was expected (and 
might be expected) to say to this business; and 
his own thoughts being set to a work, fermented 
into an intemperate heat, which, it is to be 
hoped, will in time evaporate," which, as we have 
seen, was the case. Bishop Burnet, so intimate 
with this author, writes of him : " To avoid the 
imputation that book brought on him, he went 
into the business of a high sor£ of people beyond 
what became him, perhaps beyond his own sense 
of things." 

Our own Bishop White writes concerning the 
" Irenicum " : " The book, however, was, it seems, 
easier retracted than refuted; for, though offen- 
sive to other parties, it was managed, says the 
same author (Burnet), with so much learning and 



50 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

skill, that none of either side undertook to answer 
it." (« The Case of the Episcopal Churches," 
p. 22.) 

Presuming, then, that the testimony of Stilling- 
fleet is the more conclusive from his subsequent 
history, we give a few extracts from th,e abundant 
supply at hand. On page 298, he asserts: " Be- 
fore the jurisdiction of presbyters was restrained 
by mutual consent, in this instance, doubtless, 
the presbyters enjoyed the same liberty that the 
presbyters among the Jews did, of ordaining other 
presbyters by the power with which they were 
invested at their own ordination. In the first 
primitive Church, the presbyters all acted in com- 
mon for the welfare of the Church, and either did 
or might ordain others to the same authority with 
themselves; because the intrinsical power of order 
is equally in them, and in those who were after 
appointed governors over presbyters. And the 
collation of orders doth come from the power of 
order, and not from the power of jurisdiction. 
It being, likewise, fully acknowledged by the 
school-men that bishops are not superior above 
presbyters as to the power of order. 

" But the clearest evidence of this is in the 
Church of Alexandria, of which Hierome speaks : 
< For at Alexandria,' " etc. Then quoting the pas- 
sages we have previously given, and contending 
that the ordination as well as election was con- 
ducted by the presbyters simply, he proceeds : 



TESTIMONY OF STILLINGFLEET. 51 

u To which we may add what Eutychius^ the 
patriarch of Alexandria, saith in his Origines 
Ecclesice Alexandrince, published in Arabic by 
our most learned Selden, who expressly affirms, 
1 that the twelve presbyters,' " etc. ; then giving 
the language as we have formerly quoted it, he 
proceeds : " Neither is the authority of JEutychius 
so much to be slighted in this case, coming so 
near to Hierome as he doth." 

" By these we see that where no positive re- 
straint from constraint and choice, for the unity 
and peace of the Church, have restrained their 
liberty as to their external exercise of the power 
of order or jurisdiction, every one being ad- 
vanced into the authority of a church governor, 
hath an internal power of conferring the same on 
persons fit for it." On page 326, he writes : " At 
Alexandria, where the succession runs clearest, 
the original of the powers is imputed to the 
choice of presbyters, and to no divine institu- 
tion." On page 398, after showing that in Scot- 
land ordination was practiced by presbyters from 
a. d. 263 to a. d. 430, he proceeds : " Neither is 
it any ways sufficient to say that those presbyters 
did derive their authority from bishops ; for, how- 
ever, we see here a Church governed without 
such, or if they had any, they were only chosen 
from their Culdei, much after the custom of the 
Church of Alexandria, as Hector Boethius doth 
imply." Then, stating that the Gothic churches 



52 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

were planted and governed by presbyters for 
seventy years, and the great probability that pres- 
byters ordained in the Church of France, he con- 
cludes : " We nowhere read in those early planta- 
tions of churches, that where there were presbyters 
already, they sent to other Churches to derive epis- 
copal ordination from them." And in relation to 
the doctrine of the Church of England as to the 
point, on page 438, he writes : " It is acknowl- 
edged by the stoutest champions for Episcopacy, 
before the late unhappy divisions, that ordination 
performed by presbyters, in cases of necessity, is 
validP 

In testimony to this last statement he refers to 
Bishops Jewel, Pilkington, Bridges, Bilson, Alley, 
Andrews, Downham, Davenant, Prideaux, and 
Morton, with Drs. Field, Saravia, Nowel, and 
Mason, " to whom may be added the Primate of 
Armagh (Ussher), whose judgment is well known 
as to the point of ordination." 

Thus much for the testimony of the seventeenth 
century. In our next chapter, the witness of liv- 
ing Episcopal writers will be presented. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MODERN EPISCOPAL WRITERS. 

Having presented proof that the Church of 
England acknowledged the validity of Presbyte- 
rian Orders, in the most public manner, for up- 
wards of a century after the compilation of her 
standards, we proceeded to vindicate her action 
on the ground that it was in accordance with 
primitive precedent. That for the space of two 
hundred years in the Church of Alexandria, after 
its foundation by St. Mark, no episcopal conse- 
cration or succession was practiced or possessed, 
we have shown by the statements of the early 
Fathers, and the later writers of the Alexandrian 
Church. That this was known and acknowl- 
edged by the ablest writers of the Church of 
England in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies, has been seen by quotations from their 
writings. 

We proceed now to present the admissions of 
modern Episcopal writers in relation to a fact 
which completely silences all exclusive Episcopal 
claims. And first, — 



54 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

dr. Stanley (Dean of Westminster). 

In his " History of the Eastern Church " (pp. 
326-27), when speaking of the period of the 
Council of Nice, he says : — 

" In a few weeks after the close of the Council, 
Alexander died, and Athanasius succeeded to the 
vacant see. It was a marked epoch in every 
sense for the Egyptian primacy. Down to this 
time (according to the traditions of the Alex- 
andrian Church itself), the election to the great 
post had been conducted in a manner unlike to 
that of the other sees of Christendom. Not the 
bishop, but twelve presbyters, were the electors 
and nominators, and (according to Eutychius) 
consecrators. It was on the death of Alexander 
that -this ancient custom was exchanged for one 
more nearly resembling that which prevailed 
elsewhere. 

" Jerome speaks of the custom as having lasted 
only till the Bishops Heraclas and Dionysius 
(Epist. ad Evang. 85). But the tradition of 
the Alexandrian Church, as preserved in Euty- 
chius (1-331), maintained that it lasted till 
Alexander. The change which he ascribes to 
Heraclas is another, which may have led to 
Jerome's statement, namely, that down to that 
time there had been no bishop in Egypt except 
the Bishop of Alexandria." 



TESTIMONY OF LITTON. 55 

professor litton (of Oxford). 

This able writer remarks, in his treatise on 
« The Church of Christ" (p. 570) : ".When Epis- 
copacy was introduced, to bishops as being so far 
successors of the Apostles as that they were the 
highest order of ministers in the Church, the 
power of ordination was, agreeably to apostolic 
precedent, reserved — a reservation which was 
ratified by ancient canons, and has received the 
sanction of immemorial usage. On this solid 
ground it is best to rest the practice of Episcopal 
ordination. That bishops rightly ordain, we can 
say with certainty ; to say that none but they can 
ordain, is, not only to add something of our own 
to the written Word, but to set aside the evi- 
dence of history, which testifies to the contrary, 
and to abandon the moderate position taken upon 
this subject by our most learned divines. 

" The most remarkable instance, in which a 
deviation from the rule that bishops only should 
ordain, appears to have taken place, is the well- 
known one of the Alexandrian Church, in which, 
as Jerome reports, it was the custom for the pres- 
byters ' to choose one of their own number, and 
placing him in a higher position, to salute him 
bishop ; as if an army should make an emperor, 
or the deacons should elect one of themselves 
and call him archdeacon.' (Epist. ad Evang.) 
To the same effect is the testimony of Hilary the 
deacon, and of Eutychius of Alexandria. To the 



56 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

evidence of the former writer Mr. Palmer (on 
the Church, pt. 6, c. 4), objects that the word 
' consignant,' which he (Hilary) uses, signifies 
not ' ordain,' but ' confirm,' and to that of the 
latter, that he lived too late (in the tenth century) 
to have any weight in determining such a ques- 
tion. But, however indecisive the expressions, or 
the opinions, of late writers separately may be, 
the presumption in favor of the obvious meaning 
of Jerome's language, created by their united 
testimony, is very strong, especially as it is con- 
firmed by a passage which occurs in the book 
printed with Augustine's works, ' Questiones,' 
etc. : ' Nam in Alexandria et per totam ^Egyptum 
si desit episcopus, consecrat presbyter.'" (Ques. 
51.) 

DR. WILLIAM GOODE. 

From " The Divine Rule of Faith and Prac- 
tice " of this eminent controversialist, we extract 
the following testimony : — 

" That episcopal consecration was generally 
appointed in very early times to be, as it was, the 
seal to the episcopal appointment, can hardly, I 
think, be questioned by any one who is at all 
versed in the records of the Primitive Church j 
but, nevertheless, there are testimonies occurring 
which seem to show, not merely that it was not 
absolutely essential, but that it was not univer- 
sally practiced. 



TESTIMONY OF GOODE. 57 

" For instance, the testimony of Eutychius of 
Alexandria, is plain that such was not the case 
originally at Alexandria. His words are these : " 
Then quoting the passage, he proceeds : " I have 
given this passage in full, because it has been 
sometimes replied that it referred only to the 
election of the patriarch, and that we must sup- 
pose that he was afterwards consecrated to his 
office by bishops. But it is evident to any one 
who takes the whole passage together, that such 
an explanation is altogether inadmissible ; and, 
moreover, the very same word which (following 
Selden) I have translated created, is used with 
respect to the acts of the presbyters, and is after- 
wards used with respect to the acts of the bishops 
in the appointments. I am quite aware that very 
considerable learning has been employed in the 
attempt to explain away this passage, and the 
reader who wishes to see how a plain statement 
may thus be darkened, may refer to the works 
mentioned below." 

Commenting on a passage from Renaudot, he 
continues : " The sole object for which I quote 
the passage is, to show, that according to Euty- 
chius, the person appointed to the episcopal 
office in Alexandria held and exercised the duties 
of the office without any episcopal consecra- 
tion. 

" And this statement of Eutychius is clearly 
and expressly supported by the testimony of 



58 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

Jerome, in a passage where he plainly maintains 
the doctrine that such an appointment is suffi- 
cient to constitute a presbyter a bishop, and 
adduces this example in proof of it." 

After quoting Jerome's words, he adds: " This 
passage, be it observed, does not take away from 
the episcopate its rights, but distinctly admits 
that the power of ordination belongs properly to 
that office, and that its possessor has a higher 
rank than the presbyter. But, at the same 
time, it clearly maintains that as it respects the 
ministerial character, there is no difference be- 
tween a presbyter and a bishop, the difference 
being only to be found in the ecclesiastical dis- 
tribution of the duties to be performed by them, 
and what is still more to our purpose, that 
appointment to the episcopal office by the pres- 
byters of the Church is sufficient (as far as essen- 
tials are concerned) to entitle a presbyter to 
perform the duties of the episcopal function. 

" Now these two positions are perfectly con- 
sistent with each other. We may maintain fully 
even the apostolicity of the episcopal form of 
church government, and yet deny, that episcopal 
consecration is a sine qua non to the performance 
of the duties of the bishop or president of a 
church. And, if we bear this in mind, we shall 
find that Jerome, notwithstanding the charges of 
self-contradiction that have been brought against 
him, is perfectly consistent in what he has written 



TESTIMONY OF RIDDLE. 59 

on this subject. The great point with Jerome 
manifestly is, that such a president of the Church 
should be appointed, and such powers conceded 
to him ; and, in his view, when that is done, the 
essentials are safe." (Vol. ii. pp. 255-59.) 

REV. J. E. RIDDLE. 

We present another witness in this connection, 
whose testimony is of great weight from his emi- 
nent learning in the department of Christian 
Antiquities, — Rev. Mr. Riddle, of St. Edmunds 
Hall, Oxford. As a commentator on the Gospels 
and Prayer Book, as a Church historian, as a 
chronologist, a lexicographer, as Bampton lec- 
turer for 1852, and particularly as the compiler 
of the most learned of English modern works 
on Christian Antiquities, this author's opinion 
on the point we are considering is of peculiar 
value. 

From Mr. Riddle's full and candid dissertation 
on the ancient distinction between the bishop 
and presbyter, we take the following extract : 
" Jerome, one of the most learned of the Latin 
fathers, who had before him all the testimonies 
and arguments of earlier writers, has placed this 
matter in its true light with peculiar distinctness. 
In his annotation on the first chapter of the 
Epistle to Titus, he gives the following account 
of the nature and origin of the episcopal office : 
' A presbyter is the same as a bishop. And until, 



60 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

by the instigation of the devil, there arose divis- 
ions in religion, and it was said among the peo- 
ple, " I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of 
Cephas," churches were governed by the Com- 
mon Council of the presbyters. But afterwards, 
when every one regarded those whom he baptized 
as belonging to himself rather than to Christ, it 
was everywhere decreed that one person, elected 
from the presbyters, should be placed over the 
others ; to whom the care of the whole church 
might belong, and thus the seeds of division* 
might be taken away. Should any one suppose 
that this opinion, — that a bishop and presbyter is 
the same, and that one is the denomination of 
age and the other of office, — is not sanctioned 
by the Scriptures, but is only a private fancy of 
my own, let him read over again the Apostles' 
words to the Philippians, — •" Paul and Timotheus, 
the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in 
Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bish- 
ops and deacons : Grace be unto you and peace, 
from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus 
Christ," etc. Philippi is a single city of Mace- 
donia, and certainly, of those who are now styled 
bishops, there could not have been several at one 
time in the same city. But, because at that time 
they called the same persons bishops whom they 
styled also presbyters, therefore the Apostle spoke 
indifferently of bishops as of presbyters.' 

" The writer then refers to the fact, that St 



TESTIMONY OF RIDDLE. 61 

Paul, having sent for the presbyters (in the plural) 
of the single city of Ephesus only, afterwards 
calls these same persons bishops. (Acts xx.) To 
this fact he calls particular attention, and then 
observes that, in the Epistle to the Hebrews also, 
we find the care of the Church divided equally 
among many. l " Obey them that have the rule 
over you and submit yourselves, for they watch 
for your souls as they that must give account ; 
that they may do it with joy and not with grief, 
for that is unprofitable for you ! " And Peter,' con- 
tinues Jerome, 'who received his name from the 
firmness of his faith, says in his Epistle : " The 
presbyters who are among you I exhort, who am 
also a presbyter, and a witness of the sufferings 
of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that 
shall be revealed; feed the flock of God which 
is among you [he omits the word, " taking the 
oversight thereof," episcopountes^ i. e., superin- 
tending it], not by constraint but willingly." 
These things we have brought forward to show 
that, with the ancients, presbyters were the same 
as bishops. But in order that the roots of dissen- 
sion might be plucked up, a usage gradually took 
place that the whole care should devolve upon one. 
Therefore, as the presbyters knew that it is by 
the custom of the Church that they are subject to 
him who is placed over them^ so let the bishops 
know that they are above presbyters rather by 
custom than by the Lord's appointment^ and that 



62 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

they ought to rule the Church in common, herein 
imitating Moses,' etc. 

" The same views are maintained by this father 
in his ' Epistle to Evagrius,' with the additional 
mention of the fact, that from the first foundation 
of the Church of Alexandria, down to the days of 
Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters of that 
Church made (or, as we should say, consecrated) 
bishops. The passage, which is quoted at some 
length in the note, is very important. Having re- 
ferred to several passages of the Acts and epistles 
in proof of an assertion which he had made, to 
the effect that bishop and presbyter were at first 
the same, he proceeds to say that * afterwards, 
when one was elected and set over the others, 
this was designed as a remedy against schism. 
. . . . For at Alexandria, from the Evangel- 
ist Mark, down to the bishops Heraclas and 
Dionysius, the presbyters always gave the name 
of bishop to one whom they elected from them- 
selves, and placed in a higher degree ; in the same 
way as an army may create its general, or as 
deacons may elect one of their own body, whom 
they know to be assiduous in the discharge of 
duty, and call him archdeacon. For what does 
a bishop perform, except ordination, which a pres- 
byter may not do,' etc. 

c i The fact which Jerome here states, respecting 
the appointments and ordination of bishops in 
the Church of Alexandria by presbyters alone, for 



TESTIMONY OF TERTULLIAN. 63 

the space of more than two centuries, is attested 
also by Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria. And 
the opinion of- Jerome respecting the original 
equality, or rather identity, of presbyter and 
bishop, is in perfect accordance with the language 
of a still earlier writer, Tertullian, ' De Baptis- 
mo,' c. xvii. The two passages together form a 
text and a commentary, sufficient to elucidate 
the whole matter: 

" ' The highest priest, who is the bishop,' says 
Tertullian, ' has the right of administering bap- 
tism. Then the presbyters and deacons, yet not 
without the authority of the bishop, because of 
the honor of the Church, which being preserved, 
peace is preserved. Otherwise the right belongs 

even to laymen Emulation is the 

mother of division. " All things are lawful to 
me," said the most holy Paul, " but all things are 
not expedient." Let it suffice that you use your 
liberty in cases of necessity, when the condition 
of the person, or the circumstances of the place, 
compel you to it.' 

" Upon the whole, then, it appears that the or- 
der (or office) of a bishop is above that of a priest, 
not by any authority of Scripture, but only by the 
custom of the Church, or by virtue of an ecclesi- 
astical arrangement " (Riddle's " Antiquities," pp. 
235-42, ed. 1843). 

The declaration of Jerome, that as late as the 
fourth century, the authority to ordain was the 



64 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

sole peculiar privilege of the bishop, and this an 
ecclesiastical arrangement, not a divine ordinance, 
is in itself a sufficient refutation of the exclusive 
Episcopal claim, upon which such a dangerous 
superstructure of wood, hay, and stubble, has been 
erected in later times. 

In his preface to this same volume, entitled 
" A Plea for Episcopacy, Charity, and Peace," 
Riddle writes : " I have thus put together a few 
thoughts which have arisen in my mind while I 
have been particularly conversant with works re- 
lating to the history and antiquities of the Chris- 
tian Church. Perhaps even those grounds of 
episcopacy which I have described as certain and 
strong, may be regarded by some persons in a dif- 
ferent light, while others may think that clear cer- 
tainty and evidence attach to those which I have 
ventured to describe as doubtful. But such dif- 
ference of opinion will not trouble either my 
readers or myself, if we are duly influenced by 
Christian humility and a peaceful love of truth. 

" Lessons of moderation, candor, and Chris- 
tian charity, may be continually learnt by a care- 
ful examination of church history and antiquities. 
Great mischief and many dissensions have arisen 
from refusing to acknowledge certain questions to 
be doubtful or open, which yet have never been 
determined, and which it is not needful to com- 
press within narrow limits. The study of Chris- 
tian antiquities may show that questions do ex- 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 65 

ist, in connection with the origin and claims of 
Episcopacy, which, if positively decided and main- 
tained in the affirmative by any one set of persons, 
must lead to unpleasant differences, and perhaps 
to a want of Christian sympathy, between those 
who ought to ' love as brethren.! Let the advo- 
cates of different systems of church government 
treat each other not merely with forbearance, but 
with unfeigned respect. None of the prevalent 
systems of the present day can afford to maintain 
any exclusive claims in the face of history. Nor 
can such claims consist with charity 

" The following questions, for example, may 
well be left open, being such as will always re- 
ceive different answers from different inquirers. 

" Did the Apostles in any way sanction the 
doctrines commonly connected with the theory of 
apostolic succession ? If an apostolic succession 
had been designed from the first, it may reason- 
ably be supposed that the Apostles would have 
made some pointed allusion to such a provision 
for the transmission of the faith, and for the peace 
of the Church, especially in their warnings against 
false doctrines and divisions. But although such 
warnings are numerous, they contain no intima- 
tions of such a bulwark of sound doctrine and 
centre of Christian unity. St. Paul, in full pros- 
pect of the attempts of false teachers, did not 
charge the elders of Ephesus to abide by the de- 
cisions and doctrines of a bishop, but he desired 

5 



66 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

them to take heed to themselves, and then com- 
mended them to God 

" Whatever may become of apostolic succession 
as a theory or institute, it is impossible, at all 
events, to prove the fact of such succession, or to 
trace it down the stream of time. In this case, 
the fact seems to involve the doctrine ; and if the 
fact be hopelessly obscure, the doctrine is irrecov- 
erably lost. But can we suppose that the divine 
Author of our religion has suffered any part of his 
Gospel to perish ? It is, of course, possible that 
a truly apostolic succession may have existed, 
although the traces may have entirely disap- 
peared, but must we not allow men to regard 
such a loss as constituting to render the whole 
doctrine and institute extremely doubtful ? Should 
we not weaken the good cause of Episcopacy, by 
insisting upon pretensions which cannot be estab- 
lished, and which may really be fictitious ? 

" It is impossible to prove the personal succes- 
sion of modern bishops, in an unbroken episcopal 
line, from the Apostles, or men of the apostolic 
age. 

"As a matter of history and fact, apostolic 
succession, in this acceptation of the term, Is an 
absolute nonentity. Call it a theory, a fiction, a 
vision, or whatever you choose, you cannot give 
it a name too shadowy and unsubstantial. It 
exists, indeed, as an honest prejudice in the minds 
of many sincere Christians, and so far is entitled 



TESTIMONY OF RIDDLE. 67 

to consideration and respect. But in itself it is 
an empty sound. 

" Doubtless the custom of setting apart men 
for the Christian ministry by the laying on of 
hands, has existed in the Church from the apos- 
tolic age, having been originally derived from the 
practice of the Jewish synagogues, under which 
institution all who were appointed as fixed min- 
isters, to take care of the performance of religious 
duties, were solemnly appointed in this manner. 
The hands of the Apostles and their contempo- 
raries form, therefore, the first link of a chain 
which has extended to the present day ; and this 
circumstance is a pleasing subject of contempla- 
tion to the minds of many persons, and espe- 
cially to the members of those churches which 
have retained the custom. But we must be in 
possession of many other particulars, which are 
irrevocably lost, in order to build upon this fact 
the doctrine of a succession, derived from the 
Apostles themselves, in the line of bishops alone, 
and for the conveyance of a peculiar grace" 
(Preface to Riddle's " Antiquities," pp. 41, 46 ; 
50, 51). 

The views of the most distinguished writers of 
the Church of England, with respect to apostolic 
succession, are given at the end of the volume. 



CHAPTER VII. 

rHE ARGUMENT OF AN EPISCOPAL LAYMAN OF THE 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND, WITH RESPECT TO THE 
ORDINATIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 

We quote from " An Inquiry into the Scrip- 
tural View of the Constitution of a Christian 
Church," etc., by William Albin Garratt, A. M., 
Barrister at Law. London : 1846. 

As the view taken by a lay member of the 
Church of England, employing a legal mind in 
the examination of historical testimony, we re- 
gard the passage as eminently valuable, and 
therefore quote it almost entire. On the laity 
of the Church, under God, depends its deliver- 
ance from its present dangers, and to them espe- 
cially is commended a careful examination of 
the testimony here presented. On p. 367, this 
author writes : " Eutychius, of Alexandria, after 
mentioning that Mark the Evangelist went and 
preached at Alexandria, and appointed Hananias 
the first patriarch of that city, adds." The author, 
after quoting Eutychius, and then Severus, whose 
language we have before given, says : " The slight 
apparent discrepancy between these two passages 



ARGUMENT OF AN ANGLICAN BARRISTER. 69 

may easily be removed. Eutychius mentions the 
twelve presbyters only in whom the appointment 
of patriarch was vested, from whom the patriarch 
was to be chosen, and of whom the remaining 
eleven were to lay their hands on his head. Seve- 
rus says that the priests (sacerdotes) and people 
were assembled ; while Eutychius does not say 
that the people were excluded from being present 
at the appointment of a new patriarch. Severus 
mentions the priests generally, not particularly 
specifying the twelve presbyters ; nor had he any 
occasion to specify them, as he does not mention 
the election, but only the assembling and the lay- 
ing on of hands and the enthroning. We may, 
indeed, infer from the tenor of this narrative that 
the election in the case of Peter was merely 
formal; the choice having been previously fixed 
upon him as the spiritual son and disciple of 
Theonas, and in pursuance of his ' command ' (his 
recommendation probably). Lastly, Severus, if 
taken literally and strictly, would seem to say 
that the persons assembled, priests and people, 
laid hands on Peter; but no one would under- 
stand him v to say that every individual present 
laid his hands on Peter. The plain meaning is, 
that those of the individuals assembled whose 
office it was laid hands on the patriarch elect, the 
others being assembled to witness the transaction. 
" We have, then, in Eutychius, illustrated and 
confirmed by Severus, distinct evidence of the ex- 



70 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

istence of a custom in the Church of Alexandria 
differing altogether from the customs mentioned 
by Cyprian, as prevailing among the African 
churches in his province; a custom traced back to 
the time of Mark the Evangelist ; a custom which 
vested the election and creation of the patriarch in 
twelve presbyters without the concurrence of any 
bishop. The eleven presbyters who remained 
after one of their number had been elected bishop, 
laid their hands upon his head and implored a 
blessing upon him, thereby setting him apart for 
his new office as the ' prophets and teachers,' not 
4 apostles or bishops,' which were in the Church 
at Antioch, ' fasted and prayed, and laid their 
hands on ' Paul (an apostle already) and Barna- 
bas, and ' sent them away,' thus separating them 
for ' the work ' to which the Holy Ghost had 
6 called them,' — the missionary journey on which 
they went, as related immediately afterwards. 

" By this election and imposition of presbyters' 
hands, the individual was, according to Eutychius, 
created patriarch, invested therefore (without 
episcopal intervention), with the full authority of 
the episcopal office, and, accordingly (as we learn 
from Severus), Peter, immediately on being so 
appointed, was placed on the patriarchal throne. 
This statement of Severus overturns the fancy of 
some persons, that the rule mentioned by Euty- 
chius related only to the election, and that the 
patriarch elect was afterwards ordained by bish- 



ARGUMENT OF AN ANGLICAN BARRISTER. 71 

ops. A fancy which Mr. Goode, on other grounds, 
has shown to be without foundation. This view 
of the usage of the Church of Alexandria is con- 
firmed by a passage in Jerome (born about a. d. 
345), which, on account of its importance, I have 
quoted at some length." Having given the pas- 
sage as we have previously quoted it, he pro- 
ceeds : " In this passage Jerome not only con- 
firms Eutychius' statement of the custom of the 
Church of Alexandria, but shows his understand- 
ing of the custom to be that the presbyters there 
exclusively appointed their bishops ; and he fur- 
ther tells us how bishops were originally intro- 
duced into the Church. 

" He confirms the statements of Eutychius, 
though he speaks of the custom as continuing 
(not till Alexander, but) till Heraclas and Diony- 

sius, bishops He must have derived 

his information from some other source, probably 
from some writer contemporary with Heraclas and 
Dionysius, from whom, of course, he would only 
have learned that the custom had continued till 
their time ; and he does not say that it has ceased. 
His, therefore, is testimony independent of those 
of Eutychius and Severus, and probably derived 
from an earlier source, contemporary with the 
existence of the custom. It leaves no room to 
doubt the accuracy of the statements of Euty- 
chius and Severus. 

" More than this, Jerome's testimony establishes 



72 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

as correct that view of the custom which ascribes 
to the presbyter from first to last the appointment 
of the Patriarch of Alexandria ; not only his elec- 
tion (unum ex se electum), but his elevation to a 
higher rank ; for Jerome compares the proceeding 
to that of an army constituting a general (imper- 
atorem faciat), which, according to the Roman 
custom, was by acclamation, or of deans choosing 
an archdeacon. And the whole tenor of the pas- 
sage shows that Jerome intended to state the ap- 
pointment of the bishops of Alexandria as made 
without any episcopal interference or sanction ; on 
the custom so understood his argument is founded, 
and it is intelligible on no other hypothesis. He 
asks, indeed, ' What does a bishop do, with the 
exception of ordination, which a presbyter may 
not do ? ' But he does not ascribe this exception 
to any difference of apostolic commission between 
a bishop and presbyter. His position is that ' the 
bishop and the presbyter are the same,' both c sue- 
cessors of the Apostles] successors (not in the 
sense of a transmitted commission, but) as hold- 
ing in the Church the same office of pastors and 
teachers, the bishop being placed ' over the rest ' 
as their ruler. 

" And this is obviously the ground of the ex- 
ception, it belonging to the bishop, as chief ruler 
of the Church, to ordain ; an exception, therefore, 
limited to the case of a church having a bishop, 
and not precluding the presbyters (when the see 



ARGUMENT OF AN ANGLICAN* BARRISTER. 73 

is vacant) from electing and laying hands (as 
those of Alexandria did) on their new bishop." 

" Once more, Jerome's account of the introduc- 
tion of bishops, as distinguished from presbyters, 
deserves serious attention. Jerome had his faults, 
— and great faults, — but he was a man of exten- 
sive learning. He argues from Scripture that ' a 
bishop and presbyter ' are the same ; and then 
adds, that c afterwards one was chosen over the 
sect.' Why ? i To prevent schism ; ' to form a 
bond of union between the presbyters, and again 
to facilitate %jiion among the different churches. 
That he is right in his view of the passages of 
Scripture which he cites (Phil. i. 1, Acts xx. 28, 
Tit. i. 5, 1 Tim. iv. 14, 1 Peter v. 1, 2 John i., 
and 3 John i.) is, I think, clear, and will scarcely 
be disputed by any one, though an advocate for 
Episcopacy, who has carefully considered the 
question ; and what he adds, as a matter of fact, 
respecting the purpose for which one person was 
c chosen to be over the rest,' is not inconsistent 
with what we read in the epistles to the seven 
apocalyptic churches, or with the facts which have 
been deduced from our examination of the Fathers 
down to the time of Cyprian. It is a statement 
which implies a gradual introduction of Episco- 
pacy into the churches, first into one church, and 
then into another ; a statement in perfect harmony 
with the result which I deduced from an examina- 
tion of several epistles of the apostolic fathers, 



74 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

and at the same time utterly at variance with the 
notion of apostolic succession by episcopal ordi- 
nation. The purpose, however, for which princi- 
pally I quote this passage of Jerome, is not for 
his opinion respecting the bishops and presbyters, 
but to confirm the statements of Eutychius re- 
specting the original custom of the Church of 
Alexandria in the appointment of its patriarchs, 
and to overturn the erroneous glosses sought to 
be put upon it. 

" I now revert to that statement of Eutychius 
as incontrovertibly correct, and as establishing 
that, from the time of Hananias, who w 7 as ap- 
pointed by St. Mark Bishop of Alexandria, till 
after the Council of Nice, a period of more than 
two centuries, the twelve presbyters of Alexandria 
elected* from among themselves their bishop or 
patriarch, and by their appointment of him to the 
episcopal office (the other eleven laying hands 
opon him) constituted him bishop or patriarch, the 
ruler of their church, entitled (without any sanc- 
tion or confirmation of any other bishop) to per- 
form all the duties of the episcopal office. 

" It is further evident from the statement that 
this practice existed when there was no want of 
bishops to ordain or consecrate (had that been 
thought necessary) the patriarch. For Alexander 
(the patriarch who put an end to the custom) is 
said to have transferred the election to ' the bish- 
ops ; ' and may we not, from this expression, and 



ARGUMENT OF AN ANGLICAN BARRISTER. 75 

from the title given to the bishops of Alexan- 
dria, reasonably conclude that Alexandria was a 
mother church by which other churches had been 
founded with bishops of their own ? Yet these 
bishops took no part in the appointment of the 
patriarchs until after the Council of Nice. 

" Further, this custom was observed for more 
than two centuries without objection being made 
to it; observed, not in an obscure church, but 
in one of the principal churches of the age, in 
the chief city and metropolitan church of Egypt, 
in -a church and city of which the catechetical 
school, successively under Clement and Origen, 
was renowned throughout the world. Its patri- 
archs (those created by the presbyters) were recog- 
nized by other churches, and we learn from the 
statements in Eutychius, that its patriarch Alex- 
ander was one of the three hundred and eighteen 
bishops assembled at the Council of Nice. What 
then is the effect of this one fact ? What is the 
effect of this Alexandrian custom upon the ques- 
tion of episcopal succession by episcopal ordina- 
tion from the times of the Apostles ? 

" In the first place, it confirms the objections 
which I have offered to various passages in Ire- 
nseus, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, being re- 
ceived as evidence in support of the alleged 'fact 
of apostolical succession ' in the Tractarian sense 
of the word ; those passages I mean in which the 
writer either speaks in general terms of succession 



76 3 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

or episcopal succession from the Apostles, or as- 
serts that apostolical churches can enumerate the 
succession of their bishops, from the first bishop 
appointed by an apostle. It annihilates all such 
passages as evidence for such a purpose. The 
Alexandrian patriarchs, Heraclas, or Dionysius, or 
Alexander, could, with strict truth, have talked 
of episcopal succession in this church, from the 
first bishop appointed by Mark the Evangelist, 
and have enumerated the succession of bishops 
of Alexandria from that first bishop, and yet 
those bishops were l created ' by the presbyters ; 
yet they were not episcopally ordained to the 
office of bishop. 

" In the next place, the Alexandrian custom 
makes a gap in apostolical succession, through 
episcopal ordination, which can never be filled 
up; breaks a link in the supposed chain which 
can in no way be replaced. Even if it could be 
shown that the custom was peculiar to the 
Church of Alexandria, how could any bishop of 
the present day, tracing back his succession 
through a series of bishops to an apostle, prove 
satisfactorily that no individual in that series had 
derived, mediately or immediately, from one of 
these Alexandrian patriarchs? But can it be 
shown that the custom was, in the first ages of 
Christianity, peculiar to the Church of Alexan- 
dria ? Is it probable that the Evangelist St. Mark 
should have there introduced a usage at variance 



ARGUMENT OF AN ANGLICAN BARRISTER. 77 

with the practice of other churches ? The truth 
seems to be that the Apostles laid down general 
principles for the government of churches and the 
appointment of ministers ; and that those prin- 
ciples were variously carried out in different 
churches, according to circumstances, resulting in 
some churches earlier, in others later, in all ulti- 
mately, in the threefold distinction of ministers, 
as consonant with, but not essentially required by, 
those principles " (pp. 367-79). 

This able review, after thorough examina- 
tion of Scriptural and patristic testimony, con- 
cludes : " Firstly, that a church, bearing a three- 
fold ministry of bishops, elders, and deacons is 
conformable to the plan ultimately introduced, 
with the apostolic sanction, into the churches of 
Asia Minor, and consequently consistent with the 
will of God; secondly, that such a form of 
church government is the best, where the circum- 
stances of the Church do not essentially differ 
from those of the seven Asiatic churches; and, 
thirdly, that a church possessing that form of gov- 
ernment ought not to depart from it without clear 
and strong grounds, such as an obvious necessity 
for the preservation of the true faith." " But we 
cannot conclude from any practice of the Church, 
as recorded in the New Testament, either, firstly, 
that a church sound in apostolic doctrine, but 
wanting the threefold ministry, is not a true 
Church of Christ ; or, secondly, that a church 
having both an apostolic doctrine and a threefold 



78 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

ministry, but whose bishops cannot trace back an 
uninterrupted succession to an apostle, is not a 
true Church of Christ" (pp. 198, 199). 

We think great good might be done by the 
republication of this able and candid work by a 
clear-headed layman. 

bowdler's view. 

We give, in this connection, the language of 
another able layman of the Church of England, 
who has employed his pen against the modern 
innovators on her doctrines : — 
- " It is no part of my plan to trace the origin 
or course of departure from the system of church 
government in the apostolical times, as it lies 
before us in all its simplicity. I admit — indeed, 
as the lawyers say, it is a part of my case — that 
some change was unavoidable ; and I see nothing 
in the present constitution of the Church of Eng- 
land that is inconsistent with the principles of the 
Apostles. But to say that they are identical is a 
mere abuse of words. Still less is it to be heard 
say, without some impatience, that there is safety 
in her communion only, as she has descended 
from the Apostles, through all the changes and 
abominations that have intervened." 

After an examination of the primitive writers 
he proceeds : " I am aware that in St. Jerome's 
time there existed generally, though by no means 
universally, this difference between the bishop 
and the' presbyter, namely, that to the former was 



TESTIMONY OF BOWDLER. 79 

then confided the power of ordination. The 
transition from perfect equality to absolute su- 
periority was not suddenly effected ; it was the 
growth of time, not of years, but of centuries, 
the distinction of authority or office preceding 
that of order or degree in the Church, and being 
introductory to it. With the former I have no 
concern, it being sufficient to show, that as a 
distinct and superior order in the Church, Epis- 
copacy, in the. modern acceptation of the term, 
did not exist in the time of the Apostles; and 
that, however expedient and desirable such an 
institution might be, it cannot plead the sanction 
of apostolic appointment or example. 

" It may be difficult to fix the period exactly 
when the episcopate was first recognized as a 
distinct order in the Church, and when the con- 
secration of bishops, as such, came to be in gen- 
eral use. Clearly not, I think, when Jerome 
wrote. Thus much, at least, is certain, namely, 
that the government of each Church, including 
the ordination of ministers, was at first in the 
hands of the presbytery ; that when one of that 
body was raised to the office of president, and on 
whom the title of bishop was conferred, it was 
simply by the election (co-optatio) of the other 
presbyters, whose appointment was final, requir- 
ing no confirmation or consecration at the hands 
of any other prelates, and that each Church was 
essentially independent of every other. 

" If, then, all this be so, there seems to be an 



80 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

end to the question ; for, under whatever circum- 
stances the privilege of ordaining was afterwards 
committed to the bishop, he could of necessity- 
receive no more than it was in their power to 
bestow, from whom he received it, who were co- 
ordinate presbyters, not superiors. At whatever 
period, therefore, it were adopted, and with what- 
ever uniformity it might be continued, and what- 
ever of value or even authority it might hence 
acquire, still, as an apostolical institution, it has 
none ; there is a gap which can never be filled, 
or rather, the link by which the whole must be 
suspended is wanting, and can never be supplied. 
There can be no apostolical succession of that 
which had no apostolical existence ; whereas, the 
averment, to be of any avail, must be, not only 
that it existed in the time of the Apostles, but 
was so appointed by them, or that there can be 
no true Church without it." (" Bowdler's Letters 
on Apostolic Succession," pp. 32-48.) 

That two laymen of ability and learning, after 
a thorough examination of the subject, should 
come to the same conclusion, and this in opposi- 
tion to the general current of opinion in their 
Church, is certainly strongly confirmatory of the 
position here maintained, and should induce our 
intelligent laity to investigate the basis of a sys- 
tem which, confessedly, is doing so much damage 
to the cause of peace and unity in our com- 
munion, and prompting schism among the com- 
mon brotherhood of the faith. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ROMAN CATHOLIC TESTIMONY. 

In giving the language of Drs. Stanley, Litton, 
Goode, and Riddle, with respect to the Alexan- 
drian presbyterial ordination, we have presented 
the concessions of some of the ablest of living 
Episcopal writers, sufficient for our purpose, and 
we now offer 

ROMAN CATHOLIC TESTIMONY. 

The concession of writers of the Roman 
Church strengthen the force of our argument, and 
we therefore give the language of the learned 

MORINUS, 

as quoted by Dr. Goode. Dr. Goode remarks: 
" It is most important to observe, that even the 
Romanist Morinus, one of the most learned di- 
vines of the Church of Rome, fully admits, and 
even -maintains by the citations of various testi- 
monies, that this was for a long period the cus- 
tom at Alexandria, referring for proof particularly 
to the passage of Jerome, just cited, and vindica- 
ting the meaning I have affixed to it against ob- 



82 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

i 

jections. He finds fault, indeed, with the passage 
of Eutychius on other grounds, but with that I 
have no concern. I adduce it simply to show that 
in the case to which it refers, episcopal consecra- 
tion was not considered necessary to constitute a 
presbyter a bishop." Now, on this point, Morinus 
himself speaks thus : " St. Jerome testifies that 
at Alexandria, from the time of Mark the Evan- 
gelist to Dionysius, that is, for the space of nearly 
two hundred years, the bishops were inaugurated 
without any consecration, but the presbyters of 
Alexandria, when their bishop was dead, elected 
one of their own order, and belonging to their 
own church, and placed him upon the higher 
throne, and called him bishop. By which exam- 
ple, truly, it most clearly appears that neither 
Jerome nor the Alexandrians recognized that 
character by which a bishop is said to be above a 
presbyter, since no prayer, no ceremony, no form 
of words, was used above the presbyters elected. 
You will say he mention^ none, but it cannot 
well be concluded that there was none, since it 
is certain that authors do not always relate every- 
thing that took place. This indeed is true, but 
the scope ancT words of St. Jerome do not admit 
of this objection. For he contends, that a pres- 
byter is the same as a bishop, and proves this 
from the peculiar and unusual custom of the Al- 
exandrians, who made use of no consecration, no 
words to consecrate as a bishop the presbyter 



TESTIMONY OF MORINUS. 83 

elected by them, but only placed him on the 
throne, and called him bishop." 

Referring to the " Breviarum " of Liberatus, 
p. 122, he says : " It clearly follows from it that 
for at least two hundred years after Alexander, 
the presbyters of Alexandria, not the bishops, 
elected the patriarch ; and that neither the pres- 
byters nor the bishops, nor any other person, laid 
their hands on the person elected." 

Bishop Jewel states that it was the custom " for 
the newly elected patriarch to place the hand of 
his deceased predecessor on his own head." 

The statement of Jewel is confirmed by Bing- 
ham in his " Antiquities." 

The inquiry here arises — Did the succession 
flow through the hand of the dead patriarch, or 
from the living presbyters, and which Vas the bet- 
ter of the two ? 



CHAPTER IX. 



OBJECTIONS. 



It is not surprising that this remarkable fact in 
ecclesiastical history has much troubled our more 
extravagant and exclusive Episcopal writers, and 
among others, 

BISHOP PEARSON, 

of revered and honored memory. 

This learned writer professes to discredit the 
testimony of Eutychius, in his " Vindiciae Igna- 
tianae," while at the same time, he quotes him 
elsewhere as an authority with respect to the 
chronology of the early Roman Church. 

Gibbon remarks (vol. i. p. 108) : " The ancient 
state, as it is described by Jerome, of the bishops 
and presbyters of Alexandria, receives a remark- 
able confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius 
(Annal., torn, i., p. 330, vers. Pococke), whose 
testimony I know not how to reject, in spite of 
all the objections of the learned Pearson in his 
' Vindiciae Ignatianae.' " And page 131, " Its in- 
ternal evidence would be a sufficient answer to 
all that Pearson has urged." On a question of 



EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS. 85 

this kind, we may regard Gibbon as an impartial 
and reliable authority. 

OTHER OBJECTIONS. 

We find, in the seventeenth century, Bishop 
Parker and Dr. Hickes ; and in our times, Hobart, 
Bowden, Cooke, Chapin, Jarvis, Boyd, and Per- 
cival, offering criticisms similar to those of Pear- 
son and Palmer. 

As a specimen, Dr. Jarvis objects that " Selden, 
who made this discovery, had not a profound 
knowledge of Arabic, nor was he well versed in 
ecclesiastical history." Such language borders on 
the ludicrous. Dr. Pococke assisted Selden in his 
translation, and according to the " Encyclopaedia 
Britannica," " Pococke was for many years the 
first orientalist in Europe." He afterwards pub- 
lished the complete works of Eutychius, to which 
edition Gibbon refers. 

Of Selden, Bishop Jebb writes : " Of this great 
man's attainments, it were superfluous to speak ; 
his life, properly told, would be a complete history 
of the learning of his time." Lord Clarendon 
says : " Mr. Selden was a person whom no char- 
acter can flatter, or transmit in any expressions 
equal to his mind and virtue. He was of such 
stupendous learning, in all kinds and in all lan- 
guages, as may appear from his excellent and 
transcendent writings, that a man would have 
thought he had been entirely conversant among 



86 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

books, and had never spent an hour but in reading 
and writing." Archbishop Usher, the greatest 
scholar of his century, in his funeral sermon over 
Selden, said : u He looked upon the deceased as 
so great a scholar, that himself was scarce worthy 
to carry his books after him n (Elrington's 
" Usher," p. 273). 

To the objections of Palmer, we have given the 
reply of Dr. Litton. 

Bowden, Hobart, and Cooke have endeavored to 
disparage the testimony o*f Eutychius, by charging 
him with ignorance of the facts, misstatements, 
etc. To such objections, and to the charge that the 
work has been garbled, we reply with Mosheim, 
that Eutychius was " the most learned man of his 
nation, in medicine and theology," in a most 
learned time ; with Giesler, " It is at least certain 
that the part which is contradictory to the usage 
of later times, has not been interpolated, and so 
far has a historic value." And in the apt words of 
Stillingfleet, in answer to Pearson (" Irenicum " 
p. 300), " Neither is the authority of Eutychius so 
much to be slighted in this case, coming so near to 
Hierome as he doth, who doubtless had he told 
us, that Mark and Ananias, etc., did all these with- 
out any presbyters, might have had the good for- 
tune to have been quoted with as much frequency 
and authority as the anonymous author of the 
martyrdom of Timothy in { Photius ' (who there 
unhappily follows the story of the seven sleepers), 






EXAMINATION OF OBJECTIONS. 87 

or the author of the { Apostolical Constitutions ' 
whose credit is everlastingly blasted by the excel- 
lent Mr. Daille, on the counterfeit writings of the 
Apostles, so much do men's interest tend to the 
enhancing or abating the esteem and credit both 
of the dead and living." 

REV. J. M. NEALE. 

This author, in his recent elaborate history of 
the " Church of Alexandria," endeavors to over- 
throw the testimony of Eutychius, by charging 
him with ignorance. He contends that the act of 
the presbyters was simply an election. On^of his 
most prominent authorities, Le Quien, he con- 
fesses, was "ignorant of Arabic." Neale offers 
nothing new in his argument. 

FULL STATEMENTS OF OPPONENTS. 

In order that our readers may see all that may 
be said on the opposite side of this vital question 
on the point of succession, we give the full argu- 
ments of three of the most recent exclusive epis- 
copal writers. 

DR. PERCIVAL. 

And first, Percival on the " Apostolical Succes- 
sion," p. 26, writes : " The next precedent cited, is 
that of Alexandria, where it is pretended that, for 
about two hundred and fifty years after Christ, 
the presbyters ordained the bishop. This rests 
Upon the supposed testimony of two witnesses — 



88 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

St. Jerome, who lived one hundred and fifty years, 
and Eutychius, who lived seven hundred and fifty 
years after the time mentioned. I wonder what 
would be said of any churchman who would at- 
tempt to found a precedent on two single wit- 
nesses so far removed. However, let us consider 
what their evidence amounts to. St. Jerome 
speaks thus : i At Alexandria, from the Evangelist 
Mark, to Heraclas and Dionysius the bishops, the 
presbyters always gave the name of bishop, or 
nominated to be bishop, one chosen from among 
themselves, and placed in a higher degree.' Ob- 
serve, firstly, the utmost that can be made of this 
passage, by itself, is that the presbyters at Alex- 
andria had a voice in the appointment of the pa- 
triarch, which in other places rested with the bish- 
ops of the province. And even this is not dis- 
tinctly siated. Jerome does not say the bishop 
was chosen by the presbyters, but from among 
them. Nor does he say by whom he was placed 
in a higher degree. Observe, secondly, that St. 
Jerome proves, by his very next sentence, that he 
did not mean that the presbyters ordained the 
patriarch ; for he subjoins, " For what does a bish- 
op do, except ordination, which a presbyter may 
not do ? ' Observe, thirdly, that from the very 
passage appealed to by the Presbyterians, it ap- 
pears that, from the days of St. Mark, the founder 
of the Church of Alexandria inclusive, the Church 
there had always been governed by a single chief 



EXAMINATION OF PERCIVAL. 89 

pastor, called bishop, of a higher degree than 
presbyters ; so that episcopacy is admitted to be 
an evangelical arrangement. Thus the chief 
evidence witnesses the direct contrary to that for 
which appeal had been made to him. Next, let 
us call the other witness, Eutychius, a writer of 
the tenth century, who states that i St. Mark in- 
stituted twelve presbyters at Alexandria, who, 
upon the vacancy of the See of Alexandria, did 
choose of their number one to be head over the 
rest, and the other seven did lay their hands upon 
him, and made him patriarch.' 

" But observe, firstly, that even if we could re- 
ceive Eutychius' statements without exception, 
before the Presbyterians could derive any benefit 
from it, they must show first, reason to believe 
that the presbytery here spoken of was not an 
episcopal, or apostolic college, as we have seen 
before; that all the early commentators under- 
stood the presbytery (1 Tim. iv. 14) to be. Sec- 
ondly, that the patriarch thus appointed, received 
no other ordination, and then, when they have 
done jail this, still thus much will remain proved 
against them, by this very story, that ecclesias- 
tical government, by a community of presbyters, 
without a chief pastor over them, was* unknown 
at Alexandria, as well as in the rest of Christen- 
dom. 

" But observe, secondly, that if Eutychius, who 
lived in the tenth century, is allowed to be a com- 



90 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

petent witness of what happened in the first and 
second, Severus, a writer of the same age and 
country, must be also allowed to bear testimony. 
Severus distinctly speaks of bishops and presby- 
ters and laity being all concerned in the appoint- 
ments of patriarchs of Alexandria, in the very 
earliest successions. So that we must inquire 
further, whether any other historical evidence that 
may be adduced on the point, tends most to con- 
firm Eutychius or Severus. Now, firstly, it is 
certain that all the other churches received the 
canons, called apostolical, which require a bishop 
to be ordained by two or three bishops, and recog- 
nize no other order as qualified to ordain. Be- 
tween these churches and Alexandria, constant 
communication was kept up, sometimes on the 
most friendly, sometimes on the most unfriendly 
footing. But in none of their intercourse, neither 
amicable or hostile, is this point of difference 
ever urged ; which, sure, it would have been, on 
one side or the other, as a handle of reproach, if 
it had really existed. Secondly, the learned 
Abraham Echellensis has shown that, from the 
beginning, these very canons were received by the 
Church of Alexandria itself; so that the Christians 
there must have violated their own laws, had they 
done as the Presbyterians suppose. Thirdly, we 
find from other quarters that, early as A. d. 300, 
there were not less than one hundred bishops in 
the patriarchate of Alexandria. Fourthly, which 



EXAMINATION OF PERCIVAL. 91 

seems decisive of the point, we find a question 
coming before a council of Alexandria, a. d. 339, 
concerning one Ischryas, who acted as a presbyter, 
pretending to have received orders from a certain 
Colluthus. But when it was made plain that 
Colluthus himself had died a presbyter, the coun- 
cil decreed that all on whom he had laid hands 
should be regarded as mere laymen. Surely the 
world will hardly be persuaded that the council 
would have thus denied the power of a presby- 
ter to ordain even a presbyter, if, in the memory 
of living men at the time, their patriarch himself 
had received no other ordination. What then 
must we suppose to have been the ground of the 
opinions expressed by Jerome and Eutychius? 
Simply some peculiar privileges in the election of 
the patriarchs of Alexandria which, from several 
other quarters, we learn that the presbyters of 
that city possessed. 

" Abraham Echellensis, in the documents relat- 
ing to the Alexandrian Church, which he has 
collected, has preserved one which gives an ac- 
count of a discussion between the bishops of the 
province and the presbyters of the city, upon 
this very point ; in which, while the bishops freely 
acknowledge the right of election to be in the 
presbyters, they as freely asserted their right of 
veto upon such election, provided the persons 
elected were unworthy of the office." (See Le 
Quien, in his " Oriens Christianus ; Patr. Alex.") 



92* THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

As to the statements of Percival, ifr may be ob- 
served : — 

1st. If Jerome is not to be received as a wit- 
ness, because living one hundred and fifty- years 
after the events described, why is Eusebius more 
worthy of credence, who lived as long after the 
men whose succession he gives, upon what he 
confesses to be uncertain testimony ? Without 
Eusebius, Percival could not pretend to present 
authority in regard to episcopal succession. Je- 
rome, moreover, had access to all the authorities 
which were in the hands of Eusebius. 

2d. It should be borne in mind that there were 
no bishops in the neighborhood to ordain the 
patriarch. This is a sufficient answer to nearly 
all the objections of Percival. 

3d. Because Jerome states that bishops en- 
joyed in the fourth century one privilege beyond 
presbyters, namely, that of ordaining, it does not 
follow that it had always been regarded as essen- 
tial for them to ordain, or that they received the 
right by episcopal succession, or, that the exclu- 
sive privilege was divinely conferred. The oppo- 
site is clearly established in this discussion. 

4th. Scriptural Episcopacy, it is here asserted, 
always existed at Alexandria ; episcopal govern- 
merit, but not'episcopal succession. Confusion on 
this point is the source of most of the difficulties 
in this controversy. 

5th. Percival does not give the language of 



EXAMINATION OF PERCIVAL. 98 

Severus. Eutychius confirms Jerome's testimony. 
Sever us contradicts Jerome. Severus must, there- 
fore, be untrustworthy. 

6th. The facts prove that the Alexandrian 
Church did not receive the so-called Apostolical 
Canons. Dr. Whittaker states in his " Disputa- 
tion of Scripture " (p. 508) : " The canons which 
go under the name of the Apostles are supposi- 
tions." Fulke, his contemporary, styles them 
" the counterfeit canons," and Whitgift says (vol. 
ii. p. 121) : " There is a great suspicion in the 
counterfeiting of them." 

7th. Of Abraham Echellensis, Johnson, the 
biographer of Selden (p. 288), states : " This 
Abraham Echellensis was a Maronite priest, in 
the pay of the Roman Pontiff, and he employed 
so much personal abuse in an attempt to refute 
Selden, that he injured his own reputation more 
than that of him whom he attacked." 

8th. What occurred after the year 300 has no 
bearing on the argument. • 

9th. In regard to Colluthus, Stillingfleet affirms 
that the ordinations of Colluthus were pronounced 
invalid, because conferred " without the diocese " 
and " without a title." They were void because 
done " in contempt of ecclesiastical canons," 
canons made after the times under consideration. 
The case of Colluthus has clearly nothing to do 
with our subject. 



94 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

DR. JAR VIS. 

We proceed now to give all that a learned 
countryman, Dr. Samuel F. Jarvis, has to offer 
in opposition to the ground here taken. In 
Chapin's " Primitive Church " (p. 200), Dr. Jarvis 
adds in a note : " In Egypt the ancient custom 
originally was, and now is, to have a threefold im- 
position of hands in the creation of bishops. The 
votes of the people wqre given and numbered by 
lifting up of hands, and confirmed by the laying 
on of hands by the principal laity. The presbyters 
laid their hands twice on the head of the person 
elected, first in giving their votes, and afterwards 
their solemn approbation of his admission to the 
episcopate. The bishops also twice laid on their 
hands, first, to confirm their suffrage, and finally 
at their consecration. The following is the order 
prescribed in the ancient constitutions of the 
Church in Alexandria." After quoting canons 
to this effect, Dr. Jarvis proceeds : — 

" This also furnishes an answer to another 
argument urged against this conclusion. During 
the troubles in the reign of Charles the First, an 
attempt was made to prove that the churches of 
Alexandria, founded by St. Mark, were originally 
Presbyterian. An extract from the Annals of 
Eutychius, who succeeded Christobulus, a. d. 
933, as the Melchite Patriarch of Alexandria, 
was employed for this purpose. Selden, who 
made this discovery, had not a profound knowl- 






OBJECTIONS OF JARVIS. 95 

edge of Arabic, nor was he well versed in ecclesi- 
astical history. His translation, therefore, was 
inaccurate in several points, which vitally affected 
his argument ; and he seems not to have been 
aware, that the ancient records of the Egyptian 
Church were inaccessible to Eutychius, and that 
his testimony is of no value, except with regard 
to the history of the Melchites. These facts 
show, most conclusively, that both Caius and 
Eutychius were mistaken, and that at Alexan- 
dria, as elsewhere, none but bishops ordained. 
This Jerome himself allows, in opposition to the 
authority he had quoted, if, indeed, it is quoted 
correctly." 

In reply to this statement we remark. 1st. 
How ancient the custom and canons alluded to 
were, the writer does not state. They were 
manifestly later than the period we are discuss- 
ing, and, therefore, of no account in this argu- 
ment. 

2d. The establishment of our point proves that 
the Church of Alexandria was Episcopal, not 
Presbyterian, and therefore one allegation of Dr. 
Jarvis is false. It was the efforts of Laud to 
change the ancient principles of the Church, and 
to establish the divine right of episcopal succes- 
sion, which drove Selden, Owen, Baxter, and 
others out of the Church of England ; which 
produced the schism in the Church ; which led 
to the civil war ; at the restoration inflicted upon 



96 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

Christianity the stain of a second St. Bartholo- 
mew's Day ; drove from their pulpits near two 
thousand of the best ministers of England ; 
brought down the Divine judgment in the form 
of a century of ecclesiastical torpor ; has kept 
half the population out of a so called national 
Church; which in our own land has made our 
Church a mere handful of the nation, and is 
rapidly destroying its reputation and influence. 
Selden did not try to establish Presbyterianism, 
but as a wise and intelligent layman he opposed 
ecclesiastical tyranny. His friend, Archbishop 
Usher, endorsed his work on Eutychius, and 
labored to restore the primitive, moderate Epis- 
copacy. He failed, and the Church has reaped 
the sad harvest. The unjust animadversions of 
Jarvis on Seidell's learning we have already no- 
ticed (p. 85), and we find nothing further in this 
author's statement that needs a reply. 

DR. MAHAN. 

The latest effort to disprove the statements of 
Jerome, Eutychius, and others, we find*, is that 
of Professor Milo Mahan, who, in his " Church 
History" (p. 227), writes: " In the constitution 
of the Episcopate of Alexandria there seems to 
have been some departure from the general prac- 
tice of the Church, the exact nature of which, 
however, it is not easy to determine. The 
amplest account of the peculiarity is given by 



EXAMINATION OF MAHAN. 97 

Eutychius, a patriarch of Alexandria in the tenth 
century." After giving the language of Euty- 
chius, he proceeds: "St. Jerome gives substan- 
tially the same account, except that he makes no 
mention of ordination by the eleven, and says 
the change of custom occurred in the times of 
Heraclas and Dionysius. 

" In the silence of contemporaries on the sub- 
ject, and from the vagueness and lateness of the 
testimony given, there is room for the conjecture 
that Egypt, instead of being divided among several 
local sees, was governed for a while by a college 
of twelve chief pastors residing in Alexandria, the 
bishop of that see being at their head. Nothing 
could be more natural than such an arrangement, 
at the first planting of the Church. In later 
times, however, as the Gospel extended into the 
provinces, it would be found inconvenient, and 
each important city would desire a resident 
bishop of its own. This is the most natural in- 
ference, if the language of Eutychius be taken 
to the letter. For the presbyters mentioned by 
him were presbyters who had power to ordain ; 
but presbyters with power to ordain are the same 
as bishops, in the restricted sense of the word. 
As St. Jerome says, in connection with this sub- 
ject, < What does a bishop do, except ordination, 
which a presbyter cannot do ? ' 

" This is said on the supposition that the eleven 
both elected and ordained their patriarch. But, 



98 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

as that point is not certain, resting only on the 
testimony of a writer manifestly inaccurate in 
language, and living six centuries after the period 
of which he speaks, the peculiarity of the Church 
of Alexandria may have been merely that of 
electing a bishop out of a close corporation of 
twelve presbyters, instead of choosing from the 
Church at large, as was customary in other 
places." 

In a note he adds : u It is fatal to the theory 
of any radical or even marked change in the 
church government of Egypt, that the period in 
question is covered by the names of Origen, 
Meletius, and others, who belonged to an opposi- 
tion party, and who certainly would have made 
themselves heard, if the ruling party had been 
guilty of innovations. ... It is hardly neces- 
sary to remind the reader, that the term Pres- 
byter, like the term Priest, or Sacerdos, was often 
used as a name for the ministry in general, and, 
therefore, might be applied to any order. 2 John, 
i. 3; John, i. 1 ; Peter, v. 1." 

We have here, then, all that an ingenious 
writer, in the light of the past, can offer, to offset 
the historical testimony given with regard to the 
omission of episcopal consecration and succes- 
sion in the famous Alexandrian Church. Such 
a statement virtually yields the point in dispute. 
The testimony of Jerome is not here disputed, 



EXAMINATION OF MAHAN. 99 

and as the fact that there were no bishops in Al- 
exandria, or in the neighborhood, after the death 
of the patriarch, cannot be controverted, there re- 
mains nothing in the remarks of this author which 
requires an answer. 



CHAPTER X. 

RECAPITULATION. 

We propose briefly to recapitulate the argu- 
ments by which (as we think) we have estab- 
lished the fact that in the patriarchal church of 
Alexandria, the patriarch was elected by presby- 
ters for the space of over two hundred years, and 
had no episcopal consecration whatever. 

1st. In the first place, we gave the clear, de- 
cisive testimony of Jerome, and of a contempo- 
rary, who* lived within a century after the custom 
described. 

2d. We presented the full and particular state- 
ment of Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria, and 
of another later Egyptian writer, confirming the 
facts. 

3d. We showed by standard writers of the 
Church of England, during the Reformation, .that 
these facts were well known at that time. 

4th. The statements of the most learned writers 
of the next century were presented, confirming 
the same. 

5th. Four of the ablest living scholars of the 



RECAPITULATION. 101 

Church of England were quoted, as acknowledg- 
ing the truth of our statement. 

6th. As evidence of the views of Roman Cath- 
olic writers, the language of Morinus was given, 
who fully acknowledged the truth of the histor- 
ical fact we have undertaken to substantiate. 

7th. Gibbon was quoted, answering the objec- 
tions of Bishop Pearson and others, who have 
sought to establish the exclusive view. 

8th. After meeting the objections of Jarvis, 
Palmer, Percival, and Mahan, we closed the ar- 
gument with an historical criticism by an accom- 
plished barrister of the English Church, who feels 
compelled, after full investigation,, to acknowl- 
edge that the testimony of history on this point 
is satisfactory and conclusive. 

Such is the testimony offered with regard to 
this custom of the Church of Alexandria. 

The evidence is more certain and accurate than 
we possess with respect to the manner of ordina- 
tion of any other primitive church. There has 
been more dispute with respect to Ignatius, and 
the Church of Antioch, than with regard to the 
statements of Eutychius. 

With regard to the Church of Antioch, Jerome 
differs from Origen and Eusebius, and these from 
other writers. 

With respect to the Church of Rome, no one 
knows whether St. Peter visited Rome or not. 



102 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

There is no satisfactory proof to this effect, while 
the probabilities are that he never saw Rome. 

No one can tell who was the first Bishop of 
Rome, and there are at least twelve differing opin- 
ions as to who were the first six bishops, and their 
order. Truly, as Stillingfleet remarks, " The suc- 
cession of Rome is as muddy as the Tiber," and 
its doctrine more muddy than its succession. Our 
knowledge of the ancient successions is almost 
wholly derived from Eusebius, while Jerome had 
access to the same authors as the former writer. 

The following important results flow from the 
establishment of the historical point we have 
ventilated : — 

1st. There was no uniform manner of ordina- 
tion established by the Apostles. 

2d. Consecration by presbyters was practiced in 
one of the great patriarchates for more than two 
centuries immediately succeeding the Apostles, 
or, election without consecration was deemed 
sufficient to constitute a bishop. 

3d. Succession through presbyterian ordination 
was acknowledged by the Primitive Church, Alex- 
ander and Athanasius of Alexandria being among 
the foremost members of the Council of Nice. 
Bingham states that the Patriarch of Alexandria 
consecrated all the bishops of his vast province, 
and claimed the right of ordaining all the elders 
and deacons ; consequently, the celebrated Atha- 
nasius had but a presbyterian succession, and his 



RECAPITULATION. 103 

orders were worth as much as those of the Meth- 
odist Bishop Asbury, and the Lutheran superin- 
tendents. 

4th. The Church of England was right in al- 
lowing the full validity of presbyterian orders. 

5th. All those who acknowledge such ordina- 
tion are both Anglican and Primitive ; those who 
deny it are opposed both to the Anglican and 
Primitive Churches. 

6th. Archbishop Laud, in introducing among 
Protestants the doctrine that episcopal orders are 
alone valid, was an ecclesiastical innovator, and a 
promoter of schism. 

7th. That his system, as adopted by the Non- 
jurors and Tractarians and their sympathizers, is 
founded on error, and is chargeable with the dis- 
sensions which have divided, distracted, and 
deeply injured the reputation and influence of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church ; consequently, it is 
the duty of every member of the same, as it is of 
all Christians, persistently and earnestly to oppose 
and resist the unchurching, exclusive dogma. 

8th. That to those Christians who hold to 
Biblical, spiritual, and evangelical views of the 
Church of Christ, as opposed to those which are 
ecclesiastical, sacrificial, and legal merely, there is 
no difficulty in healing all divisions with respect 
to church orders and government. 

The general acknowledgment of the historical 
fact that the Alexandrian Church was not epis- 



104 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

copal in its consecration, and consequently in its 
succession, though governed by a patriarch, while 
the churches of Antioch and Rome were possibly 
so, and all the churches, by common agreement, 
soon after the Apostles, under the superintendence 
of bishops, by the custom of the Church, and not 
by divine law (as Augustine and Jerome and oth- 
ers directly assert), virtually settles the controver- 
sies which afflict the Church, and " Ephraim will 
no longer envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim." 

The orders, ministry, and sacraments of the 
Protestant Evangelical churches of England, 
America, and Germany, w T ill be mutually ac- 
knowledged ; the way will be opened for agree- 
ment upon the primitive basis of Episcopacy, to 
which happy result the claims of extreme Episco- 
palians have presented the most formidable obsta- 
cles. 

Then the practice of reordination by the Epis- 
copal, or any other church, will be sustained only 
on the grounds on which Archbishop Leighton 
consented to be reordained, and on which the 
Church of Geneva reordained those who came to 
them from the Church of France, as Bingham 
has stated — i. e., that every church has an inher- 
ent right to arrange its form of ordination, and 
that the repetition of the rite is simply a solemn 
imprecation for a renewal of ministerial grace ; 
terms similar to those upon which Bishop Heber 
invited the Lutheran ministers of India to con- 






RECAPITULATION. 105 

form to the Church of England, and the same on 
which Archbishop Bramhall received the conform- 
ing Presbyterian clergy of Ireland. On no other 
grounds can reordination be rightfully received or 
allowed, and those who have permitted or received 
it with the opposite, exclusive view have departed 
from the principles of the Primitive and Protest- 
ant Episcopal churches, influenced, no doubt, by 
the wide-spread misconceptions which have so 
long prevailed on this subject. 

Let the view and practice of the Primitive 
Church be substituted for this novelty of Romish 
origin ; let truth take the place of error ; let the 
mistake, conscientiously made, be rectified in ac- 
cordance with the facts of history, and on princi- 
ples both of charity and sound policy ; then the 
Protestant Episcopal Church will become, as she 
is prepared to be (instead of holding a negative 
and subordinate position), the Macedonian Pha- 
lanx, the Tenth Legion, the Old Guard, in the 
coming fierce onset upon the power of the evil 
spirit, the god of this world. 

Such are the conclusions which we submit to 
the candid reader. If Jerome and Hilary, Euty- 
chius, Sevens and Elmacinus, Whitgift and 
Willet, Usher and Stillingfleet, Morinus and 
Gibbon, were deceived ; if Stanley, and Goode, 
and Litton, and Riddle, and Garrat, and a multi- 
tude of the most learned men of other churches, 
have misconceived the truth, let wiser and better 



106 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

scholars give proof to this effect. Otherwise let 
the truth be generally received ; let the one evan- 
gelical ministry be acknowledged, whether epis- 
copal or presbyterian in its succession, both primi- 
tive and both valid, both equally blessed of the 
Lord, and sharing his abounding grace and favor, 
and let all the people say amen ! 



CHAPTER XL 

TESTIMONY FROM NON-EPISCOPAL STANDARD 
WRITERS. 

As there are some who do not think episcopal 
ordination or consecration necessary to give value 
to a writer's statements, and that an author may- 
be as learned and reliable outside the Episcopal 
Church as within it, we present the confirmatory 
evidence of a few leading non-episcopal standard 
historians. As these are generally text-books in 
most of the divinity schools in this country, it will 
be evident how slight is the prospect of the spread 
of exclusive episcopal claims among American 
Christians. We present as our first witness, 

DR. PHILIP SCHAFF, 

of the German Reformed Communion. 

Dr. Schaff, who is second to no living author- 
ity on a point like this, in his " History of the 
Christian Church" (pp. 418, 419), thus writes : 
" In favor of the second view, which denies the 
apostolic origin of the episcopate as a separate 
office or order, and derives it by way of human, 
though natural and necessary development from 
the presidency of the original congregational pres- 



108 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

byterate, are the following facts : The custom of 
the Church of Alexandria, where, from the Evan- 
gelist Mark down to the middle of the third cen- 
tury, the tw T elve presbyters elected one of their 
number president, and called him bishop. The 
fact rests on the authority of Jerome, and is con- 
firmed independently by the annals of the Alex- 
andrian patriarch Eutychius, of the tenth century. 
The latter states that Mark instituted in that city 
a patriarch (this is an anachronism) and twelve 
presbyters, who should fill the vacant patriarchate 
by electing and ordaining to the office one of 
their number, and then electing a new presbyter, 
so as always to retain the number twelve. He 
relates, moreover, that down to the time of Deme- 
trius, at the end of the second century, there was 
no bishop in Egypt besides the one in Alexan- 
dria ; consequently, there could have been no 
episcopal ordination except by going out of the 
province." 

GIESLER. 

This learned writer in his " History" (vol.i. pp. 
56-65), writes : " The new churches everywhere 
formed themselves on the model of the mother 
church at Jerusalem. At the head of each were 
the elders, presbuteroi, episcopoi, all officially of 
equal rank, though in several instances a peculiar 
authority seems to have been conceded to some 
one individual from personal considerations." He 
gives the language of Jerome, and referring to 



TESTIMONY OF GIESLER. 109 

Augustine, Chrysostom, and Theodoret, remarks : 
" It is remarkable how long this notion of the 
original sameness of bishops and presbyters was 
retained." He then refers to Isidore, Bernaldus, 
Gratian, and Lancelot, as Romanists who sus- 
tained this view, and says : " It was not till after 
the Reformation that this view (the original iden- 
tity of bishops and presbyters) was attacked. 
Since this, all Catholics as well as the English 
Episcopalians, maintain an original difference be- 
tween bishop and presbyters." .... " After 
the death of the Apostles," he continues, " and the 
pupils of the Apostles, to whom the general direc- 
tion of the churches had been conceded, some one 
among the presbyters of each church was suffered 
gradually to take the lead in its affairs. In the 
same irregular way the title of episcopos, bishop^ 
was appropriated to the first presbyter." To sus- 
tain this view, he quotes Ambrosiaster, about 380, 
Jerome, Hilary, and Eutychius, with respect to 
the Alexandrian Church, and remarks of this last 
author : u In this passage it is at least certain that 
the part which is contradictory to the usage of 
later times has not been interpolated, and so far 
has an historical value. Attempts have been 
made to explain away its evidence by Morinus, 
Pearson, Le Quilen, Renaudot, Petavius, and es- 
pecially by Abraham Echellensis." 



110 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

NEANI>ER. 

In this authors " Church History " (vol. i. p. 
190), we read: " Soon after the apostolic age, the 
standing office of president of the presbytery 
must have been formed ; which president, as hav- 
ing preeminently the oversight over all, was desig- 
nated by the special name of episcopos, and thus 
distinguished from the other presbyters. Thus 
the name came to be applied exclusively to this 
presbyter, while the name presbyter continued at 
first to be common to all ; for the bishops as pre- 
siding presbyters, had no official character other 
than that of the presbyters generally. They were 
only primi inter pares. Many of the later Fathers 
still have a right understanding of this process of 
the matter. (Hilary, in ep. i. ad Timoth., c. iii.) 
Omnis episcopus presbyter, non tarnen omnis pres- 
byter episcopus ; hie enim episcopus est, qui inter 
presbyteros primus est. 

"Jerome (146, ad Evang.) says that it had 
been the practice of the Alexandrian Church, 
until the times of the bishops Hieroclas and 
Dionysius, in the middle of the third century, for 
the presbyters to choose one of their own num- 
ber as a president, and call him bishop. And so 
also there may be some foundation of truth in 
the account of Eutychius, though it may not be 
wholly true, and must be chronologically false. 
This person, who was Patriarch of Alexandria in 
the first half of the tenth century, relates that in 



TESTIMONY OF HERZOG. Ill 

the Alexandrian Church, up to the time of the 
Bishop Alexander, in the beginning of the fourth 
century, the following arrangement had existed : 
There was a college of twelve presbyters, one of 
whom presided over the rest as bishop, and these 
presbyters always chose their bishop out of their 
own number, and the rest ordained him." 

HERZOG. 

From this author's " Encyclopedia of Theol- 
ogy," edited by Dr. Bomberger, we take the follow- 
ing extract. Under the head " Bishop," we read : 
" In addition to having the general direction of 
affairs, the bishop early acquired authority to ap- 
point and ordain elders. But even in this respect 
there was for several centuries no uniform rule ; 
for whilst the Council of Ancyra (314) made or- 
dination the duty of bishops of the larger cities, 
and forbid country bishops or presbyters to or- 
dain, the distinction was not strictly observed in 
other parts of the Church. Thus, in Egypt, 
where to the time of the Patriarch Demetrius 
(190-232), there were no bishops but the one in 
Alexandria, and the presbyteries exercised episco- 
pal functions still later. (See Jerome, ad Evang., 
Giesler, Ritchl.) The same holds of the Church 
in Ethiopia and Scythia." 

THOMAS POWELL. 

Thomas Powell, an English Wesleyan, in an 



112 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

elaborate answer to Percival, republished by the 
Methodist Book Concern, on page 130, after quot- 
ing the statements of Jerome, with respect to the 
Church of Alexandria, proceeds : " Here, then, it 
is evident that Jerome speaks simply of the fact 
and custom which had then, in his day, become 
established as to what bishops do and presby- 
ters may not do ; not of the power or right of 
presbyters, or that they could not by divine right 
do what the bishops did. This custom, or ec- 
clesiastical arrangement, which, for the honor of 
the bishop and his church, made ordination gen- 
erally a prerogative of the bishop's office, Jerome 
advises the presbytery to comply with. Therefore, 
4 they may not,' because of this custom, especially 
without the bishop's license, ordain. Any other 
supposition would make Jerome contradict, in the 
same page, what he had most firmly maintained. 

" His illustrations show the same. The custom 
of the Church of Alexandria was evidently in- 
tended by him as an example of ordination by 
presbyters ; else why mention it as something 
which had ceased in his day to be common. 

" The presbyters at Alexandria, prior to a. d. 
250, elected one of themselves, placed him in the 
chair (all the consecration which he had), and 
gave him his title of bishop. It is trifling to say, 
as Episcopalians do, i Perhaps there were bishops 
present who laid on hands and consecrated him.' 
This is little short of contradicting Jerome. He 



TESTIMONY OF POWELL. 113 

certainly makes the presbyters the doers of all 
that was done in making the bishop. The case 
of the army making its general, is another in- 
stance which he mentions in illustration of his 
position. Every school-boy knows that the Ro- 
man army in those days frequently created their 
generals by acclamation ; and it is to these pro- 
ceedings Jerome alludes ; the lawfulness of the 
thing was no more necessary to his argument, 
than the lawfulness of the unjust steward's con- 
duct to our Lord's argument. It is the fact, and 
its bearing, which are important. The deacons, 
too, then appointed one of themselves as their 
head, calling him archdeacon ; so the presbyters 
make a presbyter their head, and call him bishop. 
The army made the general ; the deacons, the 
archdeacons; and the presbyters made the bishop. 
This is plainly the sense. Presbyters, then, or- 
dained even bishops, in the See of Alexandria, 
from the time of St. Mark up to Heraclius and 
Dionysius, that is, for about the first two hundred 
years after Christ. 

" Stillingfleet has, moreover, quoted, in confirma- 
tion of this view, the testimony of Eutychius, the 
Patriarch of Alexandria, who expressly affirms," 
etc. .... " The names, it seemed, varied; 
the thing was the same. There never was any 
universally established manner of making bish- 
ops, in the Christian Church, except the Scriptu- 
ral one, by which every man is made a minister 



114 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

and bishop at once, by one and the same ordina- 
tion." 

NATHAN BANGS. 

Dr. Bangs, of the same communion, in his 
work, " An Original Church of Christ," remarks 
(p. 69), after quoting Mosheim's commendations 
of the learned writings of Eutychius: " Here 
then was a patriarch living in the very place, and 
occupying the episcopal chairs of the very church 
whose annals he wrote, and which annals Mos- 
heim tells us were extant in his time ; and it is 
from these same annals, called by Stillingfleet, 
Origines Ecclesice Alexandrince (Origin of the 
Alexandrian Church), which the learned Selden 
published in Arabic, that the above testimony is 
quoted. Who more likely to ascertain the facts in 
the case than the very man who lived, taught, and 
wrote in the very city and church whose annals he 
wrote ? Had he not the most easy access to the 
archives of the Church whose overseer he was ? 

" But, says our objector, that testimony of 
Eutychius Is not to be relied on, because he lived 
in the tenth century! Verily, this is an age of 
discovery ! How long did Moses live after the 
events had come to pass which he narrates ? 
Josephus must be muzzled because he happened 
to lived upward of four thousand of years after 
Adam was taken from the ground ? Indeed, ac- 
cording to this rule, by a summary process all the 
historians, except those who have confined their 



TESTIMONY OF BANGS. 115 

narratives to their own times, must pass under 
the knife of excision, as pseudo-annalists, and 
therefore worthy of death ! Rolfin, Hume, the 
authors of fhe ' Universal History,' Mosheim, Mil- 
ner, Haweis, Gregory, Dupin, and a thousand 
others, must all go by the board, as unworthy of 
credit, because they wrote of times so long ante- 
rior to their days ! 

" But it is not surprising that an attempt 
should be made to set aside this testimony of 
Eutychius, for it is a death-blow to the doctrine 
of the essentiality of a third order to a valid ordi- 
nation. And hence the most unreasonable de- 
mand, that I must prove that Eutychius did in 
truth express himself thus. I have produced the 
witness, plain, positive. Let them if they can 
invalidate the truth of his evidence. I have, 
moreover, corroborated the truth of this testimony 
by that of a number of others, all of whom testify 
to the general fact, namely, that presbyters did 
ordain other presbyters, and also, in many in- 
stances, superior ministers in office. Can they 
invalidate this testimony ? They know that they 
cannot. I lay it down then as a principle ab initio, 
that the right of ordination was in the college 
of presbyters, and that they exercised when, 
where, and as long as they pleased ; and that, 
whenever they were divested of it, it was either a 
voluntary act of their own, or was taken from 
them by force." 



116 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

ABEL STEVENS. 

Dr. Stevens, an eminent living Methodist di- 
vine, in his " Essay on Church Polity," a standard 
in his denomination, writes (p. 58) : "The exam- 
ple of the Church of Alexandria furnishes a com- 
plete vindication of Mr. Wesley's ordination in 
the American Church." He then quotes Dr. 
Goode's translation of Eutychius, and gives Arch- 
bishop Usher's concession with respect to the 
ordination by Alexandrian presbyters. Bishop 
John Emory, in his " Episcopal Controversy Re- 
viewed " (pp. 90-100), largely ventilates the sub- 
ject, taking the same view. 

It must be evident to all, from the extracts 
given from standard Methodist Divines, that 
exclusive Episcopacy has a poor prospect of 
propagating its scheme among the members of 
this leading denomination in our land. The suc- 
cess of this communion is a testimony to the ef- 
ficiency of episcopal government, when adapted 
to the age and people where it is employed. 

DR. JAMES P. WILSON. 

This Presbyterian author was eminent for 
learning, and no less for candor. In his treatise 
on " The Primitive Government of Christian 
Churches," he takes ground against the doctrine 
of the lay eldership of his own communion, as 
well as the theory of episcopal government. 
Concerning Jerome's letter to Evagrius, he writes 



TESTIMONY OF WILSON. 117 

(p. 172) : " In no city was planted, by the Apos- 
tles, more than one church ; this the scriptural 
and subsequent history of the Church demon- 
states. A presbytery existed in every organized 
Church, and no more in a city; consequently, 
one presiding presbyter, who afterwards, by cus- 
tom, for prevention of schisms, became the 
bishop, belonged to each church, and conse- 
quently to every city in the age of Jerome. At 
the period of the forgeries, which bear the name 
of the pious Ignatius, parochial Episcopacy pre- 
vailed ; but they betray ignorance, who affirm that 
presbyters were then laymen, or that such a grade 
is an essential characteristic of the Presbyterian 
Church. Seven deacons were appointed at Jeru- 
salem ; no more were ordained in Rome. This 
paucity, and the nature of their duties, created 
popularity, whilst the number of presbyters dimin- 
ished their importance. Dissensions arose be- 
tween these orders, and Augustine has recorded 
an appeal to the bishop of that metropolis, to 
decide between them. Probably this letter was 
sought and given on that occasion; or it may 
have been in defense of the Bishop of Rome, 
who was persecuted by a deacon of high rank. 
Though a presbyter, Jerome never officiated as 
such except in private lectures on part of the 
Scriptures, but even these were scarcely delivered 
by him as an officer either at Rome or Beth- 
lehem. 



118 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

" This letter could not have been the offspring 
of jealousy, but of regard to the truth. His lan- 
guage is temperate, his arguments rational, and 
his authorities the Scriptures ; to these custom 
and expediency are subordinate — canons he does 
not even name. 

" From the practice here mentioned of the 
Church at Alexandria, after the death of Mark, 
the Evangelist, the existence of Episcopacy from 
that period, which was apostolic, has been in- 
ferred. There could have been little difference 
between the state of things in apostolic times, 
and at the death of Mark. In both, the pres- 
byters had their ruling elder or president; upon 
them custom, founded on consent, devolved the 
responsibility and superintendency of the pres- 
bytery, of which the Church of Alexandria fur- 
nished a proof. Jerome shows this was a human 
innovation, because that presbyter and bishop 
were originally the same office, and so regarded 
by Paul, Peter, and John ; also, by the churches 
of Philippi, Ephesus, and those of Crete, and 
other places, each of which had been governed 
by the Common Council of its own presbytery. 

u The election of such a presiding presbyter at 
Alexandria, he does not refer either to antece- 
dent apostolic precept or example, but expressly 
to the presbyters themselves, whose election con- 
stituted the only disparity. Mark held the high 
office of evangelist, and, as such, might preside 



TESTIMONY OF WILSON. 119 

in any church, especially of his own planting. 
If he supplied the place of a president, in ad- 
vanced age, after his death the presbytery of 
Alexandria, acting as others, must have chosen 
one permanently, the growth of whose power 
afterwards kept pace with the customs of other 
churches. The assertion by Eutychius, a. d. 950, 
that the presbyters in Alexandria, from the first, 
ordained such bishop, is incredible. Reordination 
began in the Cyprianic age, and, in Jerome's 
day, was performed only by bishops ; so, also, 
was the ordination of presbyters. ' What does 
a bishop, ordination excepted, that a presbyter 
may not do ? ' The first of these verbs denoted 
a present and continuous acting ; the second is 
of the same sort, but potential, and consequently 
expressing a future. To imagine this spoken by 
Jerome, of early times, is, therefore, obviously 
incorrect. When he wrote, every one knew that 
for presbyters to ordain was contrary to the laws 
and canons of the Church ; his proof of their 
original identity, from the fact that presbyters 
might now perform all other duties of bishops, 
required the exception. But every mind per- 
ceives that the establishment of the identity 
destroyed the originality and authority of the 
exception. 

" Any other interpretation would unnerve his 
argument, produce self-contradiction, and con- 
flict with the fact that Timothy was ordained by 



120 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

a presbytery. The sameness of the office could, 
therefore, never be reconciled with episcopal ordi- 
nation, as in this day. The confession of such 
an exception, if it referred to apostolical times, 
immediately after showing that presbyters of 
themselves chose, and placed in his seat, and 
denominated the person the Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, would betray weakness in the extreme. 
Although the presbyters of Alexandria officiated 
in their respective places in the city, they were 
rather a parish than a diocese, being one church, 
whereof they, with their bishop, who was one 
with themselves, constituted the presbytery — not 
a church session of mute elders — every pres- 
byter had his place of preaching in Alexandria. 
Had the presbyters, so chosen to preside, been 
ordained by presiding presbyters of cities in 
Palestine or Syria, instead of being an example 
of the introduction of the custom of devolving 
the responsibility and oversight, which had be- 
longed to the presbytery, on one of their number, 
it would have proved the reverse, and contra- 
dicted the position that presbyter and bishop 
denoted at first the same office." .... 

Page 175. " The fanciful idea of episcopal 
successors/tip by divine right was repugnant to 
the views of Jerome, who has unanswerably 
refuted it by numerous Scriptural testimonies, 
and demonstrated his meaning and consistency 
by asserting equally of presbyters, that they were 



TESTIMONY OF COLEMAN. 121 

successors to the degree of the Apostles. ' Qui 
apostolico gradui succedentes ' (ad Heliodorus, 
torn. 1, p. 1)." Irenseus had set him examples 
of each long before. 

" That these successors of the Apostles inherited 
their gifts, authority, or influence, or had any 
other ordination than that of their co-presbyters, 
prior to the Cyprianic age, has never been shown 
to us by credible testimony. His defense of 
presbyters against deacons, his use of the word 
presbyter without the imaginary distinction of 
preaching and lay elders, and his universal silence 
with regard to the latter, evince that Jerome had 
no idea of lay presbyters. He is, therefore, 
another ' witness against that novel order, of 
which not a vestige has been found in the first 
four centuries.' " 

LYMAN COLEMAN. 

This Congregational divine, in his " Apostol- 
ical and Primitive Church " (ed. 1844, p. 183), thus 
writes : u We have next the authority of Jerome, 
who died a. d. 426. He was one of the most 
learned of the Latin Fathers. Erasmus styles him 
1 by far the most learned and eloquent of all the 
Christians, and the prince of Christian divines.' 
Jerome received his education at Rome, and was 
familiar with the Roman, Greek, and Hebrew lan- 
guages. He visited Egypt, and travelled exten- 
sively in France and the adjacent countries. He 



122 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

resided in the course of his life at Constantinople, 
at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and at Bethlehem. By 
his great learning, and extensive acquaintance 
with all that related to the doctrines and usages 
both of the Eastern and of the Western Churches, 
he was eminently qualified to explain the rights 
and prerogatives of the priesthood. 

" But does Jerome testify to the rights of pres- 
byters to ordain ? l What does a bishop,' says 
he, ' ordination excepted, which a presbyter may 
not do ? ' This, however, is said of the relations 
of bishops and presbyters as they then were. This 
restriction of the right of ordaining to the bishops 
alone was a recent innovation, which had begun 
to distinguish them from the presbyters, and to 
subvert the original organization of the Church. 
But it was an acknowledged fact, in his day, that 
the bishops had no authority from Christ or his 
Apostles for their unwarranted assumptions. 'As 
the presbyters know that it is by the custom of the 
Church that they are subject to him who is placed 
over them, so let the bishops know that they are 
above presbyters rather by the custom of the 
Church, than by the fact of our Lord's appoint- 
ment, and that they (both bishops and presbyters) 
ought to rule the Church in common, in imitation 
of the example of Moses.' 

rt He reviews the same subject with great point 
in his famous epistle to Evagrius, or more prop- 
erly, in modern editions, to Evangelus. He re- 



TESTIMONY OF COLEMAN. 123 

bukes with great severity certain persons who had 
preferred deacons in honor i above presbyters, i. e. 
bishops' Having thus asserted the identity of 
bishops and presbyters, he goes on to prove his 
position from Phil. i. 1, from Acts xx. 17, 28, from 
Titus i. 5, from 1 Tim. iv. 14, and from 1 Pet. v. 
1. ' Does the testimony of these men seem of 
small account to you ? ' he proceeds to say ; c then 
clangs the gospel trumpet, — that son of thun- 
der whom Jesus so much loved, and who drank 
at the fountain of truth from the Saviour's breast, 
— " the presbyter to the elect lady and her chil- 
dren," 2 John i. 1 ; and in another Epistle, " the 
presbyter ;to the well beloved Gaius," 3 John i. 
1.' " Then quoting the passage with reference to 
the Alexandrian Church, Mr. Coleman proceeds: 
" Here the presbyters themselves elect one of 
their number and make him bishop, so that 
even the bishop himself is ordained by the pres- 
byters, if indeed it can be called an ordination : 
if not, then he is only a presbyter still, having no 
other right to ordain than they themselves have. 
Such, Jerome assumes, is the usage * in every 
country? There was but one ordination for bish- 
ops and presbyters in his time, though bishops 
had now begun exclusively to administer it. But 
we have a stream of testimonies coming down to 
us from the time of the Apostles, that it had been 
the custom of the Church from the beginning, for 
bishops and presbyters to receive the same ordi- 



124 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

nation. This is another consideration of much 
importance to show that presbyters were entitled 
to ordain. Having themselves received episcopal 
ordination, as truly as the bishops, they were 
equally qualified to administer the same. 

" But Jerome himself attributes to presbyters 
the original rights of ordination. < Priests who 
baptize, and administer the Eucharist, anoint 
with oil, impose hands, instruct catechumens, con- 
stitute Levites and others priests, have less reason 
to take offense at us, explaining these things, or 
at the prophets foretelling them, than to ask of 
the Lord forgiveness.' 

" The relevancy of this passage depends upon 
the question, who are the sacerdotes, priests, of 
whom Jerome speaks? He is commenting upon 
Zephaniah iii. 3 : 4 Her princes within her are 
roaring lions,' by which he understands hex priests, 
saying, ' I am aware that I shall offend many be- 
cause I interpret these things as said of bishops 
and presbyters.' Then, after remarking, at length, 
upon this degenerate priesthood, he adds the sen- 
tence above. Jerome, therefore, ascribes to pres- 
byters and bishops alike the same rights to con- 
stitute i Levites and others priests,' applying the 
terms not to the Jewish priesthood, but to the 
clergy of the Christian Church in his day, and in- 
cluding both bishops and presbyters in the same 
category, as possessing equal rights to baptize, to 
ordain, and to administer the sacraments. 



TESTIMONY OF COLEMAN. 125 

" That the right of ordination belonged to pres- 
byters is evident from the authority of Euty- 
chius, of Alexandria, the most distinguished writer 
among the Arabian Christians of the tenth cen- 
tury. His authority confirms the testimony of 
Jerome, while it illustrates more clearly the usage 
of the Church in Egypt. The citation, with the 
translation, is from Goode." This author then 
gives the extract from Eutychius with Dr. Goode's 
comments. 

Neander, who indorses Dr. Coleman's work, in 
his introduction, thus speaks of episcopal gov- 
ernment: " This change in the mode of adminis- 
tering the government of the Church, resulting 
from peculiar circumstances, may have been in- 
troduced as a salutary expedient, without imply- 
ing any departure from the purity of the Christian 
spirit. When, however, the doctrine, as it gradu- 
ally gained currency in the third century, that 
the bishops are, by divine right, the head of the 
Church, and invested with the government of the 
same ; that they are the successors of the Apos- 
tles, and by this succession inherit apostolical au- 
thority ; that they are the medium through which, 
in consequence of that ordination which they have 
received, merely in an outward manner, the Holy 
Ghost, in all time to come, must be transmitted 
to the Church, — when this becomes the doctrine 
of the Church, we certainly must perceive in these 
assumptions a strong corruption of the purity of 



126 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. * 

the Christian system. It is a carnal perversion 
of the true idea of the Christian Church. It is a 
falling back into the spirit of the Jewish religion. 
Instead of the Christian idea of a church, based 
on inward principles of communion, and extend- 
ing itself by means of these, it presents us with 
the image of one like that under the Old Testa- 
ment, resting on outward ordinances, and by ex- 
ternal rites seeking to promote the propagation 
of the Kingdom of God. This entire perversion 
of the original view of the Christian Church was 
itself the origin of the above system of the Ro- 
man Catholic religion — the germ from which 
sprung the Popery of the Dark Ages. 

" We hold indeed no controversy with that class 
of Episcopalians who adhere to the episcopal sys- 
tem above mentioned as well adapted, in their 
opinion, to the exigencies of their Church. We 
would live in harmony with them, notwithstand- 
ing their mistaken views of the true form of the 
Church, provided they denounce not other sys- 
tems of church government. But the doctrine 
' of the absolute necessity of the episcopal as the 
only valid form of church government, and of 
the episcopal succession of bishops above men- 
tioned, in order to participation in the gifts of the- 
Spirit, all this we must regard as something for- 
eign to the true idea of the Christian Church. It 
is in direct conflict with the spirit of Protestant- 
ism ; and is the origin, not of the true Catholicism 



TESTIMONY OF CUMMING. 127 

of the Apostles, but of that of the Romish 
Church. When, therefore, Episcopalians disown, 
as essentially deficient in their ecclesiastical or- 
ganization, other Protestant churches which evi- 
dently have the spirit of Christ, it only remains 
for us to protest, in the strongest terms, against 
their setting up such a standard of perfection for 
the Christian Church. Far be it from us who 
began with Luther in the spirit, that we should 
now desire to be made perfect by the flesh." 
Gal. iii. 3. 

DR. JOHN CUMMING. 

Dr. Cumming, in his u Lectures on Roman- 
ism " (p. 163), writes : " Let me now proceed to 
show you, by two simple statements, what is 
really understood by apostolical succession. It 
is, in the first place, supposed that each bishop 
has been consecrated by his contemporary bish- 
ops, on the death of his predecessor, and that no 
one link in the long line of successive conse- 
crators or consecrations is wanting between Dr. 
Bird Sumner, the present excellent Archbishop of 
Canterbury, and St. Peter, St. Timothy, or Sft. 
Paul. 

" The second position is, that ordination per- 
formed by successive bishops only, is valid, and 
that the party obtaining this ordination thereby 
receives all the gifts and grace of the Spirit, by 
which his act and deed give vitality and virtue 
to every sacrament and ordinance he administers. 



128 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

These are the two great positions of those who 
advocate what is called the apostolical succes- 
sion. The simplest illustration of it that I can 
give you, would be a long magnetic, galvanic, or 
electric chain, starting at the foot of an apostle, 
and extending downward to the present Primate 
of all England ; to the first link of which was 
imparted a mysterious and subtle element or 
virtue, which has been transmitted by successive 
consecrations, link by link, parallel with the plane 
of the earth, until it has reached the bishops of 
the present day, on whose heads, as in reservoirs, 
it is condensed and ready for use and transmis- 
sion to their successors. 

" Now, you will see at once, that if the first 
link in a long chain is wanting, the whole falls 
to the ground ; or if twenty links in the middle 
of a chain are wanting, the whole falls to the 
ground ; or if, in this electric chain of which I 
have been speaking, some links in the middle, 
instead of being veritable conductors of the mys- 
terious virtue, are incapable of transmitting it, 
or are so vitiated that the current must fly off by 
a centrifugal force, then, again, the transmission 
is arrested and dissipated, and all post et propter 
hoc is vitiated. In all these respects I am ready 
to prove, that the apostolical succession be- 
longs to those things called < endless genealogies, 
which minister questions, rather than godly edi- 
fying.' 



TESTIMONY OF CUMMING. 129 

" Now, I will show you, that in the far stretch- 
ing chain of succession to the Apostles, the very 
first link after the Apostles is wanting. 

" My proof, on this point, is drawn from the 
recorded state of the see (using the word in the 
ancient sense), or bishopric, or oversight, or by 
whatever equally suitable name it may be called, 
of Alexandria. Eutychius, of Alexandria, states 
that St. Mark, the Evangelist, first of all preached 
the gospel in Alexandria." 

After quoting the language of Eutychius, Dr. 
Cumming proceeds : " It is here distinctly de- 
clared, that during the three hundred years that 
preceded the Council of Nice — that is, up to 
325 — the custom in Alexandria was, not for 
other bishops to consecrate the bishop that was 
to be the head of the diocese, but for the twelve 
presbyters to meet together and choose one of 
themselves as chairman, or moderator, or patri- 
arch, and their choice and designation, without 
any consecration by a bishop, was ipso facto et 
de jure the appointment of that bishop. This is 
utterly opposed to recent views, and, even on 
moderate Episcopal principles, it is irregular at 
least. 

" If all the presbyters of London were to meet 
together at the death of the Bishop of London, 
and to elect one of themselves as bishop and 
consecrate him, every Tractarian would protest 
against it as a departure from the vital laws of 



130 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

the Church, and an utter interruption and de- 
struction of the succession, and such a person 
would be pronounced to be no more bishop than 
I should be held to be their diocesan by the same 
party. 

" But if it be the fact, that the presbyters thus 
originally constituted their bishops in so great a 
see, and if it be a fact, also, that there is no 
transmission of the apostolical succession where 
there is no consecration by bishops, then I ask, 
Can any one of the present bishops of the Eng- 
lish Church prove that his succession and conse- 
cration may not be derived from some of the 
elected said bishops, who were merely non- 
consecrated presbyters of Alexandria, and so, 
after all, be null on Tractarian principles, how- 
ever sound and admissible on ours? Sure we 
are there is a risk of some non-conducting link 
being introduced into a chain, during these three 
hundred years, when a custom prevailed in so 
important and influential a diocese, so opposite 
to that which is now thought essential." 

After quoting the confirmatory statements of 
Severus and Jerome, our author proceeds: " These 
collateral witnesses prove, equally, that the cus- 
tom existed at Alexandria of the presbyters conse- 
crating or ordering their bishops. And if this be 
the fact (and we have the best of all demonstra- 
tion of it, because it is proved by the very wit- 
nesses to whom the tractators appeal), then, we 



TESTIMONY OF KILLEN. 131 

repeat it, as the appointment of presbyters was 
the only consecration that was had in that city 
during three centuries, the element which, upon 
Tractarian principles, is essential to the transmis- 
sion of the succession, was altogether wanting, 
and this vicious procedure may have infected all 
parts of the Church." 

DR. W. D. KILLEN. 

Professor Killen, of the Presbyterian Church 
of Ireland, in his interesting work on the u An- 
cient Church for the First Three Hundred Years" 
(p. 580), writes : " It is clear, from the New Tes- 
tament, that in the apostolic age ordination was 
performed by 4 the laying on of hands of the 
presbytery,' and this mode of designation to the 
ministry appears to have continued until some 
time in the third century. We are informed by 
the most learned of the Fathers, in a passage 
to which the attention of the reader has been 
already invited, that ' even at Alexandria,' etc. . . . 
(p. 533). 

" As Jerome here mentions various important 
facts of which we might otherwise have re- 
mained ignorant, and as this statement throws 
much light upon the ecclesiastical history of the 
early Church, it is entitled to special notice. 

" In the letter where this passage occurs, the 
writer is extolling the dignity of presbyters, and 
is endeavoring to show that they are very little 



132 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

inferior to bishops. He admits, indeed, that, in 
his own days, they had ceased to ordain ; but 
he intimates that they once possessed the right, 
and that they retained it in all its integrity until 
the former part of the preceding century. Some 
have thought that Jerome has here expressed him- 
self indefinitely, and that he did not know the 
exact date at which the arrangement he describes 
ceased at Alexandria. But his testimony, w T hen 
fairly analyzed, can scarcely be said to want pre- 
cision, for he obviously speaks of Heraclas and 
Dionysius as bishops by anticipation, alleging that 
a custom, which anciently existed among the 
elders of the Egyptian metropolis, was main- 
tained until the time when these ecclesiastics, 
who afterwards successively occupied the epis- 
copal chair, sat together in the presbytery. 

" The period thus pointed out can be easily 
ascertained. Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, 
after a long official life of forty-three years, died 
about a. d. 232, and it is well known that Hera- 
clas and Dionysius were both members of his 
presbytery towards the close of his episcopal 
administration. It was, therefore, shortly before 
his demise that the new system was introduced. 
In certain parts of the Church the arrangement 
mentioned by Jerome probably continued some- 
what longer. Cyprian apparently hinted at such 
cases of exception when he says, that in { almost 
all the provinces,' apud nos quoque et fere per 



TESTIMONY OF KILLEN. 133 

provincias universas tenetur (Epist. 68), the neigh- 
boring bishops assembled, on the occasion of an 
episcopal vacancy, at the new election, and ordi- 
nation. It may have been that, in a few of the 
more considerable towns, the elders still con- 
tinued to nominate their president. 

" When the erudite Roman presbyter informs 
us that ' even at Alexandria,' nam et Alexandrice, 
the elders formerly made their own bishop, his 
language obviously implies that such a mode of 
creating the chief pastor was not confined to the 
church of the metropolis of Egypt. It existed 
wherever Christianity had gained a footing, and 
he mentions this particular see, partly, because 
of its importance, being, in point of rank, the 
second in the empire, and partly, perhaps, because 
the remarkable circumstances in its history, lead- 
ing to the alteration which he specifies, were 
known to all his well-informed contemporaries. 

" Jerome does not say that the Alexandrian 
presbyters inducted their bishop by imposition 
of hands, or set him apart to the office by any 
formal ordination. 

" Eutychius, the celebrated Patriarch of Alexan- 
dria, who flourished at the beginning of the tenth 
century, makes this assertion. According to this 
writer there were originally twelve presbyters con- 
nected with the Alexandrian Church ; and when 
the patriarchate became vacant, they elected one 
of the twelve presbyters, on whose head the re- 



134 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

maining eleven laid hands, and blessed him and 

created him patriarch. (See the original passage 

'in Selden's works, ii. c. 421, 422 : London, 1726.) 

This passage furnishes a remarkable confirma- 
tion of the testimony of Jerome, as to the fact 
that the Alexandrian presbyters originally made 
their bishops, but it is probably not very accurate 
as to the details. As to the laying on of hands, 
it is not supported by Jerome. 

" His words apparently indicated that they did 
not recognize the necessity of any special need of 
investiture; that they made the bishop by elec- 
tion ; and that, when once acknowledged as the 
object of their choice, he was at liberty to enter 
forthwith on the performance of his episcopal 
duties. When the Roman soldiers made an em- 
peror, they appointed him by acclamation, and 
the cheers which issued from their ranks as he 
stood up before the legions, and as he was clothed 
with purple by one of themselves, constituted the 
ceremony of his inauguration. The ancient arch- 
deacon was still one of the deacons (the case is 
different with the modern English archdeacon 
who is a presbyter) : as he was the chief almoner 
of the Church, he required to possess tact, dis- 
cernment, and activity ; and, in the fourth cen- 
tury, he was nominated to the office by his fellow- 
deacons. Jerome assures us, that until the time 
of . Heraclas and Dionysius, the elders made a 
bishop just in the same way as in his own day 



TESTIMONY OF KILLEN. 135 

the soldiers made an emperor, or as the deacons 
chose one whom they knew to be industrious, and 
made him an archdeacon." 

After quoting from the letters of Pius, Bishop 
of Rome, to Justus of Vienne, and of Irenseus to 
Victor of Rome, in support of Jerome's state- 
ment, our author proceeds : " Some imagine that 
no one can be properly qualified to administer di- 
vine ordinances who has not received episcopal 
ordination, but a more accurate acquaintance with 
the history of the early Church is all that is re- 
quired to dissipate the delusion. The preceding 
statement clearly shows that for upwards of a hun- 
dred and fifty years after the death of our Lord, all 
the Christian ministers throughout the world were 
ordained by presbyters. The bishops themselves 
were of * the order of the presbytery,' and as they 
had never received episcopal consecration, they 
could only ordain as presbyters. The bishop was, 
in fact, nothing more than the chief presbyter. 
Thus the author of the * Questions on the Old 
and New Testament,' says : J Quice est episcopus 
nisi primus presbyter] c. 101." 

A Father of the third century accordingly ob- 
serves : " All power and grace are established in 
the church where elders preside, who possess the 
power as well of baptizing, as of confirming and 
ordaining." " Omnis potestas et gratia in ecclesia 
constituta sit, ubi prcesident majores natu, qui et 



136 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

baptizendi et manum imponendi et ordinandi" 
(Firmilian, Epist. Cyprian, ;i Opera/' p. 304). 

(Firmilian was Bishop of Cappadocia, in Asia 
Minor, an intimate friend of Origen, who passed 
much time with him, and who shared with him 
his freedom from ecclesiasticism ; Origen having 
preached the gospel as a layman for many years? 
receiving orders at a late period in life.) 

Dr. Killen continues : " An old ecclesiastical 
law, recently presented for the first time to the 
English reader (see Bunsen's < Hippolytus,' ii. 
851-7), throws much light on a portion of the 
history of the church long buried in great obscu- 
rity. This law may well remind us of those re- 
mains of extinct classes of animals which the 
naturalist studies with so much interest, as it ob- 
viously belongs to an era even anterior to that of 
the so-called apostolical canons (probably framed 
only a few years before the middle of the third 
century, and called apostolical, perhaps, because 
concocted by some of the bishops of the so-called 
apostolic churches). 

" Though it is a part of a series of regulations 
once current in the Church of Ethiopia, there is 
every reason to believe that it was framed in Italy, 
and that its authority was acknowledged by the 
Church of Rome in the time of Hippolytus* The 
canons edited by Hippolytus were, no doubt, at 
one time acknowledged by the Western Church. 
It marks a transition period in the history of ec- 



TESTIMONY OF KILLEN. 137 

clesiastical polity, and whilst it indirectly confirms 
the testimony of Jerome, relative to the custom 
of the Church of Alexandria, it shows that the 
state of things to which the learned presbyter 
refers, was now superseded by another arrange- 
ment. 

" This curious specimen of ancient legislation 
treats of the appointment and ordination of min- 
isters. ' The bishop,' says this enactment, l is to 

be elected by all the people And they 

shall choose one of the bishops and one of the 

PRESBYTERS, . . . . AND THESE SHALL LAY 
THEIR HANDS UPON HIS HEAD AND PRAY ' (Bun- 

sen's ' Hippolytus,' iii. 43). 

" Here, to avoid the confusion of a whole crowd 
of individuals imposing hands on ordination, two 
were selected to act on behalf of the assembled 
office-bearers ; and, that the parties entitled to 
officiate might be fairly represented, the deputies 
were to be a bishop and a presbyter. 

" Eutychius intimates that the Alexandrian 
presbyters continued to ordain their own bishops 
till the time of the Council of Nice. It is not 
improbable that, until then, some of them may 
have continued to take part in the ordination, and 
his statements may be so far correct. 

" The canon (of Hippolytus) illustrates the jeal- 
ousy with which the presbyters, in the early part 
of the third century, still guarded some of their 
rights and privileges. In the matter of investing 



138 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

others with church authority, they yet maintained 
their original position, and though many bishops 
might be present when another was inducted into 
office, they would permit only one of the number 
to unite with themselves in the ceremony of ordi- 
nation. Some at the present day do not hesitate 
to assert that presbyters have no right whatever to 
ordain ; but this canon supplies evidence, that in 
the third century they were employed to ordain 
bishops." 

REV. JOHN BROWN, D. D. 

Dr. Brown, of Scotland, in his " Letters to St. 
Pusey" (p. 224), writes: " But passing from your 
Church, I would further remark, that the succes- 
sion must have been injured in all those instances 
in which bishops and presbyters were not only 
baptized, but were ordained by presbyters, and 
were not reordained. Now that this was the 
case from the earliest ages is beyond a doubt. It 
was the case in the important see of Alexandria, 
when, as Usher stated to Charles I., upon the au- 
thority of Jerome and Eutychius, the presbyters 
for a long time made not only presbyters but 
bishops* ' For even from Mark the Evangelist,' 
says the first of these authors, etc. 

" Upon which Willet, as was noticed formerly, 
remarks : ( So it would seem that the very elec- 
tion of a bishop in those days, without any other 
circumstances, was his ordination.' And says 



TESTIMONY OF BROWN. 139 

Still ingfleet, who answers at considerable length 
the numerous objections urged by Bishop Pear- 
son, to this interpretation of the passage : ' ' It 
appears that by election, he means conferring 
authority, by the instances he brings to that pur- 
pose ; as the Roman armies choosing their em- 
peror, who had no other power but what they 
received by the length of the sword, and the dea- 
cons choosing their archdeacon, who had no other 
power but what was merely conferred by the 
choice of the college of deacons ' (< Irenicum,' p. 
274). 

" And says Eutychius, who is represented by 
Ebn Abi Osbae, as a ' man well acquainted with 
the sciences and institutions which were in use 
among the Christians,' and whose testimony co- 
incides with that of Jerome, c Hananias was the 
first of the patriarchs who was set over the Church 
of Alexandria,' etc. 

" And as it was obvious that he could have no 
inducements to make this statement, but a regard 
to truth, because, as he himself was a patriarch, 
it was fitted to lessen the respectability of the 
ruler, inasmuch as it showed a deviation from the 
mode of creating the patriarchs, which had been 
recommended by the Evangelist ; and as it is 
confirmed by Jerome, who was born only about 
eighty years after the change took place, and who 
had the best opportunities to become acquainted 
with the fact, as he lived much in the East, it is 



140 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

perfectly capricious on the part of Episcopalians 
to question their testimony. 

" Usher, who was one of the most able and 
learned of their bishops, examined the evidence of 
former times with the utmost care, and declared 
himself to be satisfied, and there appears to be no 
good reason why it ought not to satisfy them 
now. If they have perfect confidence in the lists 
of bishops of some of the churches given by 
Eusebius, though he lived nearly three hundred 
years after the time when they commenced, noth- 
ing but a conviction that it bears so strongly 
against diocesan Episcopacy and the apostolical 
succession, could prompt them to doubt the state- 
ments of Jerome, who lived so much nearer to the 
event which he reports, corroborated as it is by 
another individual who himself presided over the 
see of Alexandria, and might have access to its 
records, and who will be acknowledged at least to 
be an impartial witness. 

" But if the bishops of Alexandria, as Usher 
affirmed, for tvjo hundred and fifty years, were 
made by presbyters, either by election without or- 
dination, or by their laying their hands on their 
heads, and setting them apart to their office, I 
would like to be informed whether the succession 
must not have been broken even at the very be- 
ginning, during that long period. 

" And as Alexandria was one of the largest 
and most populous bishoprics in the early 



TESTIMONY OF BROWN. 141 

Church, I shall leave it to any candid individual 
to say whether he can estimate the amount of 
the disorder and confusion which may have been 
introduced into other sections of the Christian 
Church, by clergymen coming into them, whose 
orders, upon your principles, must have been ir- 
regular and invalid." 

On page 361, he adds : " I have only further to 
remark, on the statements of Jerome, that in the 
only instance which he mentions of the appoint- 
ment of bishops, after they were first introduced, 
that of the bishops of Alexandria, he represents 
them as made by presbyters, just as the Roman 
army made their emperor, and the deacons made 
their archdeacon. He does not say whether they 
ordained them, though this is asserted afterwards 
by Eutychius. And it is evident that if they 
were ordained, they alone must have performed 
it ; for before diocesan bishops were adopted by 
the Church, who did not receive their office by 
any divine appointment, but by mere human ar- 
rangement, there could be none but presbyters to 
consecrate those who were raised to the episco- 
pate, not only in the Church of Alexandria, but in 
all the churches. 

" But if, according to Jerome, it was presbyters 
alone who began the succession, and ordained 
the first diocesan bishop in all the churches, from 
whom the whole of the bishops of the present 
day, and the whole of their clergy have derived 



142 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON 

their order, the succession has been vitiated at 
the very commencement, and cannot be rectified ; 
and if presbyterian orders have no validity, there 
cannot, on your principles, be a church, or a min- 
ister, or a single individual who has any revealed 
or covenanted title to salvation on the face of the 
earth." 

DR. GEORGE CAMPBELL. 

Professor Campbell, of Marischal College, Ab- 
erdeen, in his " Lectures on Ecclesiastical His- 
tory" (p. 130), thus writes: "Another witness 
whom I shall adduce is Jerome, who wrote about 
the end of the fourth century, and the beginning 
of the fifth. The testimony which I shall bring 
from him regards the practice that had long 
subsisted at Alexandria. I shall give you the 
passage in his own words, from the Epistle to 
Evagrius, ' Alexandria a Marco,' etc. 

" I know it has been said that this relates only 
to the election of the Bishop of Alexandria, and 
not to his ordination. To me, it is manifest that 
it relates to both ; or, to express myself with 
greater precision, it was the intention of the 
father to signify, that no other ordination than 
this election, and those ceremonies with which the 
presbyters might please 'to accompany it, such as 
the installment and salutation, was then and there 
thought necessary to one who had been ordained 
a presbyter before ; that, according to the usage 
of that Church, this form was all that was requi- 



TESTIMONY OF CAMPBELL. 143 

site to constitute one of the presbyters their bishop. 
But, as I am sensible that unsupported assertions 
are entitled to no regard on either side, I shall as- 
sign my reasons from the author's own words, 
and then leave every one to judge for himself. 

" Jerome, in the preceding part of this letter, 
had been maintaining, in opposition to some dea- 
con who had foolishly boasted of the order of 
deacons as being superior to the order of presby- 
ters : Jerome, I say, had been maintaining, that 
in the original and apostolical constitution of the 
Church, bishop and presbyter were two names for 
the same office. That ye may be satisfied that 
what he says implies no less, I shall give it you in 
his own words : i Audio quendam in tantam eru- 
pisse vecordiam, ut diaconas presbyteris, id est epis- 
copis, anteferret. Nam, cum apostolus perspicue 
doceat eosdem esse presbyteros quos episcopos, quid 
patitur mens arum et viduarum minister, ut supra 
eos, se tumidus 'efferaV 

" For this purpose he had, in a cursory manner, 
pointed out some of those arguments from the 
New Testament, which I took occasion, in a for- 
mer discourse, to illustrate. In regard to the in- 
troduction of the episcopal order, as then com- 
monly understood, in contradistinction to that of 
presbyter, he signifies that it did not exist from 
the beginning, but was merely an expedient de- 
vised after the times of the Apostles, in order the 
more effectually to preserve unity in every church ; 



144 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

as, in case of difference among the pastors, it 
would be of importance to have one acknowl- 
edged superior in whose determination they were 
bound to acquiesce. His words are, ' Quod ante 
postea ; ' he had been speaking immediately before 
of the times of the Apostles : ' unus electus est, 
qui coeteris preponeretur, in schismatis remedium 
f actus est , ne unus quisque ad se tr aliens, Cliristi 
ecclesiam rmnperetJ Then follows the passage, 
quoted above, concerning the Church of Alexan- 
dria. 

" Nothing can be plainer than that he is giving 
an account of the first introduction of the episco- 
pate (as the word was then understood), which he 
had been maintaining was not a different order 
from that of presbyter, but merely a certain pre- 
eminence conferred by election, for the expedient 
purpose of preventing schism. And in confirma- 
tion of what he had advanced, that this election 
was all that at first was requisite, he tells the story 
of the manner that had long been practiced, and 
held sufficient for constituting a bishop in the 
metropolis of Egypt. It is accordingly intro- 
duced thus : ' Nam et Alexandrioej as a case en- 
tirely opposite, to wit, an instance of a church 
in which a simple election had continued to be 
accounted sufficient for a longer time than in other 
churches ; an instance which had remained a ves- 
tige and an evidence of the once universal practice. 

" Now, if he meant only to tell us, as some 



TESTIMONY OF CAMPBELL. 145 

would have it, that there the election of the bishop 
was in the presbyters, there was no occasion to refer 
to Alexandria for an example, or to a former pe- 
riod, as that continued to be a very common, if not 
the general, practice throughout the Church. And 
though it be allowed to have been still the custom 
in most places to get also the concurrence or con- 
sent of the people, this shows more strongly how 
frivolous the arguments from their being electors 
would have been in favor of presbyters as equal 
in point of order to bishops, and consequently su- 
perior to deacons ; since, in regard to most places, 
as much as this could be said concerning those 
who are inferior to deacons, the very meanest of 
the people, who had all a suffrage in the election 
of their bishop. 

" But, understood in the way I have explained 
it, the argument has both sense and strength in it, 
and is, in effect, as follows : c There can be no 
essential difference between the order of bishop 
and that of presbyter, since, to make a bishop, 
nothing more was necessary at first (and of this 
practice the Church of Alexandria long remained 
an example) than the nomination of his fellow- 
presbyters ; and no ceremony of consecration was 
required but what was performed by them, and 
consisted chiefly in placing him in a higher seat 
and saluting him bishop.' 

" Was ever anything more frivolous than Pear- 
son's criticism on the distinction between a se and 
10 



146 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

ex se ? the phrase used in the above quotation 
(' Vindicise Igrt&tianse,' p. 1. c. x.). Or could any- 
thing be conceived more foreign to Jerome's pur- 
pose than the above passage has thought fit to 
interpret it? 

" Add to this, that the very examples this father 
makes use of for illustration, show manifestly 
that his meaning must have been as I have repre- 
sented it. His first instance is the election of an 
emperor by the army, which he calls expressly 
making an emperor. And is it not a matter of 
public notoriety, that the emperors raised in this 
manner did, from that moment, without waiting 
any other inauguration, assume the imperial titles 
and exercise the imperial power ? And did they 
not treat all as rebels who opposed them ? 

" If possible, the other example is still more 
decisive. To constitute an archdeacon, in the 
sense in which the word was then used, no other 
form of investiture was necessary but his election, 
which was in Jerome's time solely in the fellow- 
deacons ; though this also, with many other things, 
came afterwards into the hands of the bishop. 
By this example, he also very plainly acquaints 
us that the bishop originally stood in the same re- 
lation to the presbyters, in which the archdeacon 
in his own time, did to the other deacons, and 
was, by consequence, no other than what the 
arch-presbyter came to be among the presbyters. 

" But does not Jerome, after all, admit, in the 



TESTIMONY OF CAMPBELL. 147 

very next sentence, the superiority of bishops in 
the exclusive privilege of ordaining- ? True ; he 
admits it as a distinction that then actually ob- 
tained ; but the whole preceding part of the let- 
ter was written to evince that from the beginning 
it was not so. 

" From ancient times he descends to times then 
modern, and from distant countries he comes to 
his own, concluding that still there was not one 
article of moment whereby their powers were dis- 
criminated : ' Quid enim facit, excepta ordinatione, 
episcopus, quod presbyter non faciat ? ' This, in- 
deed, proves sufficiently, that at that time presby- 
ters were not allowed to ordain. But it can prove 
nothing more; for in regard to his sentiment 
about the rise of this difference, it was impossible 
to be more explicit than he had been through the 
whole epistle. I shall only add, that, for my part, 
I cannot conceive another interpretation that can 
give either weight to his argument or consistency 
to his words. The interpretation I have given 
does both, and that without any violence to the 
expression. 

" I might plead Jerome's opinion in the case. 
I do plead only his testimony. I say I might 
plead his opinion as the opinion of one who lived 
in an age when the investigation of the origin of 
any ecclesiastical order or custom must have been 
incomparably easier than it can be to us at this 
distance of time. I might plead his opinion as 



148 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

the opinion of a man who had more erudition 
than any person then in the Church, the greatest 
linguist, the greatest critic, the greatest antiquary 
of them all. But I am no friend to an implicit 
deference to human authority in matters of opin- 
ion. 

" Let his sentiment be no further regarded than 
the reasons by which they are supported are found 
to be good. I do plead only his testimony as a 
testimony in relation to a matter of fact, both re- 
cent and notorious, since it regarded the then late 
uniform practice of the Church of Alexandria, a ' 
city which, before Constantinople became the seat 
of empire, was, next to Rome, the most eminent 
in the Christian world. 

" To the same purpose the testimony ot the Al- 
exandrian patriarch Eutychius has been pleaded, 
who, in his < Annals ' of that Church, takes notice 
of this same practice, but with greater particularity 
of circumstances than had been done by Jerome. 
Eutychius tells us that the number of presbyters 
therein was always twelve ; and that, on an occa- 
sion of vacancy in the episcopal chair, they chose 
one of themselves, whom the remaining eleven 
ordained bishop by imposition of hands and ben- 
ediction. In these points, it is evident there is 
nothing that can be said to contradict the testi- 
mony of Jerome ; all that can be affirmed is, that 
the one mentions particulars about which the 
other had been silent. 



TESTIMONY OF CAMPBELL. 149 

" But it will be said there is one circumstance 
— the duration assigned to this custom — where- 
in there seems to be a real contradiction. Jerome 
brings it no farther down than Heraclas and 
Dionysius ; whereas Eutychius represents it as 
continuing to the time of Alexander, about fifty 
years later. Now, it is not impossible that a cir- 
cumstantial custom might have been in part abol- 
ished at one time, and in part at another. But 
admit that in this point the two testimonies are 
contradictory, that will by no means invalidate 
their credibility as to those points on which they 
are agreed. The difference, on the contrary, as it 
is an evidence that {he last did not copy from the 
first, and that they are therefore two witnesses and 
not one, seems rather as a confirmation of the 
truth of those articles wherein they concur. And 
this is our ordinary method of judging in all mat- 
ters depending on human testimony. That Je- 
rome, who probably spoke from memory, though 
certain as to the main points, might be somewhat 
doubtful as to the precise time of the abolition of 
the custom, is rendered even probable by his men- 
tioning, with a view to mark the expiration of the 
practice, two successive bishops rather than one. 
For if he had known certainly that it ended with 
Heraclas, there would have been no occasion to 
mention Dionysius ; and if he had been assured 
of its continuance to the time of Dionysius, there 
would have been no propriety in mentioning Her- 
aclas." 



150 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

(richard Baxter (died 1691). 

This eminently learned- controversial writer in 
his "Jesuit Juggling" (Am. ed., 1835, p. 205, 
chap. xxiv. : on " Evangelical Lawful Ministry,)" 
in reply to the claim of the Roman Church, 
" that they only have a true ministry or priest- 
hood and an apostolical episcopacy and true 
ordination, and that we and all other Protes- 
tant churches have no true ministers, but are 
mere laymen under the name of ministers, be- 
cause we have no just ordination," thus argues : 
" What succession of episcopal consecration was 
there in the Church of Alexandria, when Jerome 
(Epist. ad Evagrium) tells us, i At Alexandria, 
from Mark,' etc. — .... 

" Thus Jerome shows that bishops were then 
made by presbyters. In the same epistle he 
proves from Scripture that presbyters and bish- 
ops were one. 

" Medina, accusing Jerome of error, saith that 
Ambrose, Austin, Sedulius, Primasius, Chrysos- 
tom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact 
were in the same heresy as Bellarmin himself 
reporteth him. So that presbyters now may make 
bishops as those of Alexandria did. Jerome 
there saith : ' All are the successors of the Apos- 
tles.' Yet apostles as apostles have no succes- 
sors, as Bellarmin teacheth (lib. 4, ' de Pontif.' cap. 
25) 

" 5. He that is ordained according to the Apos- 



TESTIMONY OF BAXTER. 151 

ties' directions or prescripts of Scripture, hath the 
true apostolical ordination ; but so are we or- 
dained. The Apostles never confirmed ordina- 
tion to those prelates that depend on the Pope 
of Rome. The bishops to whom the Apostles 
committed that power, are the same who are 
called presbyters by them, and they were the 
overseers or pastors, each but of one single church, 
and not of many churches, in Scripture times, 
so Hammond asserts. Such are those ordained 
among us now. 

" Gregory Nazianzen, c Orat.' 18, saith : ' I would 
there was no presidency nor prerogative of place 
and tyrannical privileges, that so we might be 
known only by virtue. But now this right side 
and left side, and middle and lower degree, and 
presidency and concomitancy, have begot us 
many constitutions to no purpose, and have 
driven many into the ditch, and have led them 
away to the region of the goats.' 

" Isidore Pelusiat, lib. 3, < Epist. 223, ad Hier- 
acem,' saith : i When I have showed what dif- 
ference there is between the ancient ministry and 
the present tyranny, why do you not crown and 
praise the lovers of equality ? ' 

"Refer to Sedulius, Anselm, Beda, Alcuin, 
Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Wickliffe's argument on 
the Waldenses. 

" Cassander (' Consult.' article 14) saith : c It is 
agreed among all, that of old, in the Apostles' 



152 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

days, there was no difference between bishops 
and presbyters, but afterwards, for order's sake 
and the avoiding of schism, the bishop was set 
before the presbyter. 5 Occam determineth, that by 
Christ's institution all the priests of what degree 
soever are of equal authority, power, and juris- 
diction. Reynold Peacock wrote a book ' De Min- 
istrorum iEqualitate,' which «your party caused to 
be printed." 

" Richard Armachan (liber 9, cap. 5, l ad Quaest. 
Armen.') saith : ' There is not found in the evan- 
gelical or apostolical Scriptures, any difference 
between bishops and simple priests called pres- 
byters; whence it follows, that there is one 
power in all, and equal from their order. Cap. 7, 
answering the question whether any priest may 
consecrate churches, etc., he saith, * Priests may 
do it as well as bishops, seeing a bishop hath no 
more in such matters than any simple priest. It 
seems, therefore, that the restriction of the priest's 
power was not in the primitive church according 
to Scripture.' 

" 6. The chief error of the Papists in this cause 
is expressed in their reason, ' no man can give 
the power which he hath not ; ' wherein they in- 
timate that it is man that giveth the ministerial 
power ; whereas it is the gift of Christ alone. Man 
doth but design the person that shall receive it, and 
then Christ giveth it, by this law, to the person so 
designed ; and then man doth invest him, and sol- 



TESTIMONY OF HOOKER. 153 

emnize his introduction. As a woman may choose 
her husband, but it is not she that giveth him 
the power over her, but God who determineth of 
that power by his law, affixing it to the person 
chosen by her, and her action is but a condition 
or cause of that capacity of the matter to receive 
the form. Men do but obey God, in a right 
choice and designation of the person ; his law 
doth presently give him the power, with which 
for order's sake he must be in solemn manner 
invested. But matters of order may possibly 
vary ; and though they are to be observed as far 
as may be, yet they always give place to the end 
and substance of the work for ordering whereof 
they are appointed." 

In this latter statement Baxter has shown the 
fallacy of our exclusive Episcopal writers. These 
have inverted the Scriptural doctrine, giving prom- 
inence to the human investiture of office, and de- 
preciating the Spirit's work in the selection of the 
bishop, in answer to the prayers of his electors. 
Like other human perversions, the Church has 
sadly suffered, and the cause of Christ's kingdom 
been greatly hindered. 

richard hooker (died 1600). 

This justly celebrated divine refers to the state- 
ments of Jerome with regard to the Church of 
Alexandria. He does not object to his testimony 
as to the presbyters making the bishop by election. 



154 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

He simply argues this point : " We cannot with 
any truth so interpret his words as to mean, that 
in the Church of Alexandria there had been 
bishops endowed with superiority over presbyters 
from St. Mark's time only till the time of Hera- 
clas and Dionysius." 

He attempts to reply to the assertion of Jerome, 
that the authority of bishops over presbyters arose 
from custom, and not from divine arrangement. 

He is not pleased with his own argument. He 
remarks : " This answer to Jerome seemeth dan- 
gerous. I have qualified it, as I may, by addition 
of some words of restraint; yet I satisfy not 
myself; in my judgment it should be altered." 

These words of Hooker appear to have been 
placed by him in the margin, and afterwards in- 
serted in the text by his editor, Dr. Gauden. 

In the same fifth chapter of Book Seventh, 
after a consideration of Jerome's language, he 
concludes : " Wherefore, lest bishops forget 
themselves, as if none on earth had authority to 
touch their estates, let them bear continually in 
mind, that it is rather the force of custom whereby 
the Church having so long found it good to con- 
tinue under the regiment of her virtuous bishops, 
doth still uphold, maintain, and honor them in 
that respect, than that any such true and heavenly 
law can be showed, by the evidence whereof it 
may of truth appear that the Lord Himself hath 
appointed presbyters forever to be under the regi- 



TESTIMONY OF HOOKER. 155 

ment of bishops, in what sort soever they behave 
themselves. Let this consideration be a bridle 
unto them, and let it teach them not to disdain 
the advice of their presbyters, but to use their 
authority with so much the greater humility and 
moderation, as a sword which 4he Church hath 
power to take from them." 

After discussing the arguments for and against 
episcopal government, in his fourteenth chapter 
he writes : " Now, whereas, hereupon some do 
infer that no ordination can stand but only such as 
is made by bishops, which have had their ordina- 
tion by others before them till we come to the 

very Apostles of Christ themselves To 

this we answer there may be sometimes very just 
and sufficient reason to allow ordination made 
without a bishop." 

Here Hooker concedes the main point, and 
justifies the action of his Church, through his 
whole life. If in the heat of argument with the 
Puritans he has used stronger language with 
respect to the authority of Episcopacy, it is an 
inconsistency necessarily connected with his posi- 
tion, and a difficulty which all encounter who 
are led to assert a jure divino claim for the supe- 
riority of bishops over presbyters, or to assert the 
necessity of an episcopal consecration to confer 
the right to ordain. If the great Hooker stumbled, 
who now can succeed in the attempt? Yet 
Hooker's claims are moderate, in contrast with 
modern -pretensions. 



156 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

bishop hoadley (died 1761). 

Bishop Hoadley, in his " Brief Defense of Epis- 
copal Ordination," argues for such ordination, on 
the ground that it was the " will of the Apostles " 
and " the settled method of the Church." He ad- 
vocates it on the ground of " order, decency, and 
regularity," — not of " indispensable necessity." 
The ability and moderation of his work justly 
entitle him to the encomium passed by Bishop 
White in " The Case of the Episcopal Churches 
Considered" (p. 17). "The name of Bishop 
Hoadley will probably be as long remembered as 
any on the list of British worthies; and will 
never be mentioned without veneration of the 
strength of his abilities, the liberality of his senti- 
ments, and his enlightened zeal for civil liberty. 
He has written in defense of episcopal govern- 
ment with more argument and better temper 
than is commonly to be met with in controversial 
writings. This amiable prelate expresses him- 
self as follows," etc. 

From the case of the Church of Alexandria, as 
stated by Jerome, Bishop Hoadley derives a strong 
argument for episcopal ordination. 

His argument is as follows (p. 418) : " First he 
saith, that in some parts of the Christian Church it 
is not very difficult to fix the time of this restraint 
upon presbyters. The only instance he produceth 
is that of the Church of Alexandria, in which he 
saith, St. Jerome tells us that for above two hun- 



TESTIMONY OF HOADLEY. 157 

dred years the presbyters chose and set apart 
their bishops. From whence he argues that if 
presbyters in this Church of Alexandria invested 
and conferred power and authority on their bish- 
ops, and the validity of this act of theirs remained 
unquestionable, much more might they confer 
order on presbyters. 

" And, lest there should not appear reason 
enough in the argument itself, he adds, that this 
argument Mr. Baxter often tells us was esteemed 
unanswerable by as great a man as Archbishop 
Usher (p. 100). I have often told this author 
how little I am moved with great names in mat- 
ters of judgment; nor will he, I well know, yield 
to the force of every argument (in other points) 
which Archbishop Usher thought unanswerable. 
And therefore I hope he will give me leave freely 
to examine the force of this argument. For I 
am so far from thinking it unanswerable, that I 
cannot help thinking it will be found to prove the 
very contrary to the design of this author in 
alleging it. For, 

" 1st. Either this bishop whom the presbyters 
of Alexandria constituted from the very time of 
St. Mark the Evangelist, to the time of Heraclas 
and Dionysius, was no more than a prime-presby- 
ter, or president of the council of presbyters, or he 
was bishop in the peculiar sense of the word. If 
he were more than a prime-presbyter, it will not 
follow that because they chose their own presi- 



158 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

dent, therefore much more might they ordain 
other presbyters, which is the argument here used. 
For it is a much less thing for persons of the same 
office, met together to choose one of themselves, 
to practice amongst themselves for the better 
management of their joint counsels, than to call 
other persons to their own office, in which they 
had no part before. But if he was bishop, in the 
peculiar sense of the word (as I doubt not St. 
Jerome meant, and this argument supposeth), 
then here is demonstration of the distinction be- 
tween bishops and presbyters from the very days 
of the Apostles. 

M 2d. This very choosing themselves a bishop 
is so far from proving that they were not under 
restraint in the point of ordination, that it is the 
very putting themselves under that restraint ; as a 
people choosing any person, from amongst them- 
selves, to be their king, restrains that right, which 
was originally in them, of granting commissions 
of lesser importance ; and is designed to devolve 
the power of doing this upon this single per- 
son ; so far is it from proving that they themselves 
continue to exercise it. And, according to St. 
Jerome, the presbyters choosing and setting a 
bishop over themselves, is the thing which put a 
period to their ruling the churches in common, 
and with a proper equality ; and from the very 
time of their doing this, they must, according to 
him, be under restraint. So that instead of argu- 



TESTIMONY OF HOADLEY. 159 

ing, the presbyters chose their bishop, a superior 
officer, therefore much more ordained presbyters ; 
I argue, the presbyters of Alexandria chose to 
themselves bishops from the very time of the 
Apostles ; therefore from that time they were re- 
strained from ordaining other presbyters, suppos- 
ing they had an original right to that work. 

" For what, I pray, is that restraint which 
Blondel and this author contend that the presby- 
ters voluntarily put themselves under, near the 
middle of the second century ; but what resulted 
from their choosing, from amongst themselves, 
governors whom they called bishops ? And what 
is that restraint which St. Jerome speaks of, 
but the very order that one should be chosen from 
among the presbyters, to whom the care of the 
Church should be in a peculiar sense committed ? 
Nay, supposing this person chosen by them to 
have been only a prime-presbyter, what I am say- 
ing is so evident, that Blondel himself acknowl- 
edges such a restraint upon the presbyters by their 
choice of a prime-presbyter, as that nothing was 
afterwards to be done, in which he was not to 
bear a principal part. And St. Jerome's only 
design being to point out the occasion of that 
distinction of bishops and presbyters, which pre- 
vailed in his days, and on which the restraint put 
upon presbyters, according to him, was settled in 
the Church ; to be sure he could mean nothing in 
these words, less than to prove that this restraint 



160 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

was in the Church of Alexandria from the time 
of St. Mark, by showing that from that time the 
presbyters of that Church had chosen bishops and 
placed them over themselves. 

" For the sentence going before is to this pur- 
pose, that though in his opinion the original de- 
sign was that presbyters should govern by their 
presbyteries ; yet that afterwards one was chosen 
from amongst them to be set over the rest ; and 
that this was designed for the preventing some 
abuses and schisms. To prove this, he appeals to 
the Church of Alexandria, in which he saith the 
presbyters, even from the time of St. Mark, had 
chosen one from amongst themselves whom they 
called peculiarly by the name of bishop, to be 
sure for the purpose above mentioned, in reme- 
dium schismatis. If, therefore, the. distinction in 
his days between the offices of bishops and 
priests was in remedium schismatis, it follows that 
this election of a bishop (which he here speaks 
of) was for the same end. For no one can say 
but that St. Jerome is here speaking of that choice 
of a bishop which restrained the power of presby- 
ters, whatever he supposed them to be. 

u 3d. It doth not in the least follow from the 
presbyters choosing their own bishops, that they 
pretended to ordain presbyters ; and yet the whole 
of this argument is founded upon their choosing 
their own bishops. Suppose it be said of any 
company of men, that they met together and 



TESTIMONY OF HOADLEY. 161 

chose one from amongst themselves, and having 
placed him by that means in a higher station, 
they called him king; doth it follow because they 
thus made him king, therefore to be sure they did 
what is of lesser importance ; that therefore any 
of them, or all of them, after this, gave. commis- 
sions to other officers under this king ? No ; from 
the time of that election he is, by the will of God 
and the law of nature, invested with all due au- 
thority ; and it is his business to give commissions 
to all inferior officers. Just so it is in the case 
before us. Let it be granted that those presbyters 
chose one out of their number, and that having 
by that means placed him in a higher station, they 
called him bishop, which is all St. Jerome saith, 
it will not follow from hence that after this elec- 
tion, they assumed to themselves to give commis- 
sions to inferior ecclesiastical officers ; but rather 
that from this time, this was one of his peculiar 
businesses, as I have just now been observing. 

" 4th. As there is no consequence in the argu- 
ment drawn from hence, so neither doth St. Je- 
rome give the least color to such an argument, but 
in the same place useth such expressions as abso- 
lutely overthrow it. H^e doth not say that these 
presbyters conferred power and authority upon 
their bishop ; nor doth it follow from what he 
saith, any more than it follows from a prince's 
nominating a person to a bishopric, that such 
nomination is the sole authority by which he acts 
11 



162 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

in ecclesiastical matters. He may, notwithstand- 
ing this, derive his authority from the will of God ; 
and the instant of the election be the time from 
whence the will of God concerning his authority 
must be supposed to take place. And therefore 
this author doth not well to add such expressions 
as these to those of St. Jerome, to embellish his 
argument, which at least must rest wholly upon 
that father. 

" Again, he useth the word episcopus in a pecul- 
iar sense, as signifying an office distinct from 
presbyters. The same word he useth in the very 
next sentence in the same sense, and denies to 
presbyters the right of ordination, as I have shown 
before, which he here appropriates to bishops. But 
what is very remarkable, he illustrates the pres- 
byters choosing their bishop by the similitude of 
an army choosing their general. Now, from hence 
it follows, that as the army after such election, 
pretended not to the granting inferior commissions 
in it, but did indeed, by means of this election, 
devolve this upon the person chosen general ; so 
neither did the presbyters, after the election of 
their bishop, pretend to the granting commissions 
to inferior presbyters ; and this for a very good 
reason, namely, because they had, by this election, 
devolved this business upon the person chosen 
bishop, as they had the care of the churches in 
all cases in a very peculiar manner. But, as I 
pass, I cannot forbear asking, if this account, the 



TESTIMONY OF HOADLEY. 163 

Alexandrian presbyters choosing their own bish- 
ops, be true, what becomes of that inalienable 
right of the laity in elections, of which this author 
upon another occasion speaks ? 
- " Thus have we seen of how little force this ar- 
gument, from these presbyters choosing their own 
bishop, is, to prove that they did all that time ex- 
ercise their supposed right of ordination ; and how 
little satisfaction this gives us in our inquiry, how 
and when the exercise of this right came to be 
restrained in the Church. From whence I like- 
wise draw an argument that it was the same (in 
St. Jerome's opinion) in all churches, as in the 
Church of Alexandria, because he makes the gov- 
ernment of churches to be always the same in all 
places; and the decree on which he founds the 
restraint put upon presbyters to be universal and 
at the same time. 

" Consequently, therefore, if it was in pursuance 
of this desire that the Alexandrian Church chose 
bishops, and that by this choice the presbyters 
were restrained in the exercise of their original 
right, this restraint must likewise be as early, 
according to St. Jerome, in all other churches, 
that is, from the very days of the Apostles. Con- 
sequently, likewise, if the learned Blondel be the 
defender and follower of St. Jerome, he cannot 
pretend to fix the time of this restraint in any of 
the churches later than this. Much less can he, 
consistently with himself, first fix the time of this 



164 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

restraint (which St. Jerome represents as at the 
same time universal) to the middle of the second 
century, and afterwards argue from St. Jerome 
himself, that it could not be in the Church of 
Alexandria till the end of the third century. 

" However, this may be palliated ; having ex- 
amined the so much boasted instance of the Al- 
exandrian presbyters, and found it so mistaken 
and so misapplied, I shall not trouble myself to 
search that dark author for any other less mate- 
rial instances, but content myself with having 
considered what is principally urged and depended 
on by those who have given the latest occasion of 
the present debate." 

Thus, with consummate ability, does Bishop 
Hoadley argue the question of moderate episco- 
pacy; and if the argument could have always 
been presented with equal wisdom and prudence, 
many objections would not have been offered to 
its acceptance. 

For Bishop Hoadley opposes with equal power 
the doctrine of an essential, unbroken, episcopal 
succession, which has so largely brought odium 
upon the Episcopal cause, and occasioned its re- 
jection by so many learned and candid persons. 

On page 489 of this same volume, this author 
remarks : " I think not an uninterrupted line of 
succession of regularly ordained bishops neces- 
sary." 

In his "Preservative" (p. 75), he more largely 



TESTIMONY OF HOADLEY. 165 

argues the point, and thus forcibly expresses his 
convictions : " I do not love, I confess, so much 
as to repeat the principal branches of their be- 
loved scheme ; they are so different, whencesoever 
they come, from the voice of the gospel. "When 
they would claim you, as their fellow-laborers the 
Papists do, by telling you that you cannot hope 
for the favor of God but in the strictest commun- 
ion in their Church (which is the true Church of 
England, governed by bishops in a regular suc- 
cession) ; that God hath himself hung your salva- 
tion upon this nicety ; that He dispenses none of 
His favors or graces but by the hands of them 
and their subordinate priests ; that you cannot be 
authoritatively blessed or released from your sins 
but by them who are the regular priests ; that 
churches under other bishops (i. e., other than in 
regular succession) are submaterial conventicles, 
made up of excommunicated persons, both clergy 
and laity, out of God's Church, and out of His 
favor : I say, when such arguments as these are 
urged, you need only to have recourse to a gen- 
eral answer to this whole heap of scandal and 
defamation upon the will of God, the gospel of 
Christ, and the Church of England in particular; 
that you have not so learned Christ, or the design 
of his gospel, or even the foundation of this par- 
ticular part of his Church, reformed and estab- 
lished in England. 

" The following arguments will justify you, 



166 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

which, therefore, ought to be frequently in the 
thoughts of all who have any regard for the most 
important point : God is just and equal and good, 
and as sure as He is, He cannot put the salvation 
and happiness of any man upon what He himself 
has put it out of the power of any man upon 
earth to be entirely satisfied in ; it hath not 
pleased God, in His providence, to keep up any 
proof of the least probability, or moral possibility 
of a regular uninterrupted succession." 

This language, addressed by this eminent de- 
fender of Episcopacy, to the Non-jurors of his 
day, is equally applicable to the Tractarians and 
Ritualists of our own times, their true successors, 
and deserves the solemn consideration of every 
member of our communion who seeks the glory 
of God in the advancement of the truth, and of a 
pure gospel. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SUCCESSION OF SOUND DOCTRINE, THE TRUE APOS- 
TOLIC SUCCESSION. 

As a fitting close to this examination of the 
Institutions of the Church of Alexandria, in their 
bearing on the doctrine of episcopal succession, 
we give the views of nearly all the prominent 
writers under Edward and Elizabeth, with those 
of other later standard writers, on this important 
topic. 

That the Reformers regarded the succession of 
Scriptural truth as the succession by which the 
Church of God was to be distinguished, is clear 
from their writings. They make no distinct 
mention of the subject in the Articles, or Ordinal. 
Inasmuch as many modern writers have asserted 
that valid succession is ministerial and tactual, 
and must be episcopal and uninterrupted, in 
order to find the doctrine of our Church on this 
subject, and to expose a pernicious error, we must 
turn to the writings of the Compilers under Ed- 
ward, and the Revisers under Elizabeth. 



168 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

JOHN BRADFORD (d. 1555). 

A clear statement of the matter is made by- 
John Bradford, Bishop Ridley's chaplain, " whom 
in my conscience," said Ridley, " I judge more 
worthy to be a bishop, than many of us that be 
bishops already, to be a parish priest." He was 
the man whom, of all others, the Papists labored 
to reclaim. 

Dr. Harpsfield, the papal examiner, held the 
following conversation with Bradford : — 

" The Church hath also," saith he, " succession 
of bishops." And here he made much ado to 
prove that this was an essential point. 

" You say as you would have it," quoth I ; " for 
if this point fail you, all the Church you go about 
to set forth will fall down. You shall not find in 
all the Scripture this your essential point of suc- 
cession of bishops," quoth I. " In Christ's Church 
Antichrist will sit." 

"Tell me," quoth he, "were not the Apostles 
bishops ? " 

" No," quoth I, " except you make a new def- 
inition of bishops ; that is, give them no certain 
place." 

" Indeed," said he, " the Apostles' office was 
more than bishops, for it was universal ; but yet 
Christ instituted bishops in His Church, as Paul 
saith, c He hath given pastors, prophets ;' so that 
I trow it proved by the Scriptures the succession 
of bishops to be an essential point." 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 169 

To this I answered that " the ministry of God's 
word and ministers is an essential point ; but to 
translate this to bishops and their succession," 
quoth I, " is a plain subtility ; and therefore," 
quoth I, " that it may be plain, I will ask you a 
question. Tell me whether the Scriptures know 
any difference between bishops and ministers 
whom you call priests? " 

" No," saith he. 

" Well, then, go on forward," quoth I, " and let 
us see what you get now by the succession of 
bishops, that is of ministers; which cannot be 
understood of such bishops as minister not, but 
lord it." 

" The next day," writes Bradford, " Master 
Harpsfield began a very long oration almost three 
quarters of an hour long, first repeating what 
he had said, and how far we had gone over 
night, and therewith did begin to prove upward 
succession of bishops here in England, for 
eight hundred years ; in France, at Lyons> 
for twelve hundred years ; in Spain, at Hispallen, 
for eight hundred years ; in Italy, at Milan, for 
twelve hundred years, laboring by this to prove 
his Church ; whereto he used succession of bishops 
in the last Church for the more confirmation of 
his words, and so concluded with an exhortation 
and an interrogation : the exhortation that I 
could obey his Church ; the interrogation, whether 
I could show any such succession for the demon- 



170 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

stration of my Church (for so he called it) which 
I followed." 

Now what w r as the reply to this argument, a 
facsimile of all exclusive succession arguments 
since ? — 

" Unto this, his long oration, I made a short 
answer, how that my memory was evil for to 
answer particularly his long oration ; therefore I 
would generally do it, thinking that because his 
oration w r as rather to persuade than to prove, that 
a general answer would serve. So I told him, 
that if Christ or His Apostles, being here on earth, 
had been demanded of the prelates of the Church, 
then to have made a demonstration of the Church 
by succession of high priests, which had approved 
the doctrine He had taught : ' I think,' quoth I, 
'that Christ here would have done as I do ; that 
is: would have brought forth that which upholdeth 
the Church, even the verity of the word of God 
taught and believed, not of the high priests 
(which of long time had persecuted it), but of 
the prophets and other good, simple men, which 
perchance were counted for heretics by the 
Church, that is, with them that were ordained 
high priests in the Church ; to whom the true 
Church was not then tied by any succession, but 
the word of God.' " (Vol. i. pp. 501, 505.) 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 171 

BISHOP RIDLEY (d. 1555). 

This view of Bradford, of great importance in 
this connection, is maintained by Bishop Ridley, 
confessedly, of all the Edwardian Reformers, of 
most influence generally in our communion. In 
his farewell letter to his Christian friends, written 
a few days before his martyrdom, Ridley says of 
the Church of Rome : " It may justly be called 
Apostolici, that is, true disciples of the Apostles, 
and also that church and congregation of Chris- 
tians an apostolic church, yea, and that, certain 
hundred years after the same was first erected and 
builded upon Christ, by the true apostolical doc- 
trine taught by the mouths of the Apostles them- 
selves. ... So long and so many hundred years 
as that see did truly teach and preach that gospel, 
that religion, exercise that power, and ordered 
everything by these laws and rules, which that 
see received of the Apostles, and, as Tertullian 
saith, the Apostles of Christ, and Christ of God ; 
so long (I say) that see might well have been 
called Peter and Paul's chair and see, or rather 
Christ's chair, and the bishop thereof Apostolicus, 
or a true disciple and successor of the Apostles, 
and a minister of Christ. . . . 

" For understand, my lords, it was neither for 
the privilege of the place or person thereof, that 
that see and bishop thereof were called Apostolic, 
but for the true trade of Chrisfs religion, which 
was taught and maintained in that see at the 



172 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

first, and of those godly men. And therefore as 
truly and justly as that see then, for that true 
trade of religion and consanguinity of doctrine 
with the religion and doctrine of Christ's Apos- 
tles, was called apostolic ; so, as truly and justly, 
for the contrariety of religion and diversity of 
doctrine from Christ and his Apostles, that see 
and the bishop thereof at this day both ought to 
be called, and are indeed, antichristian. That 
see is the seat of Satan ; and the bishop of the 
same, that maintaineth the abominations thereof, 
is Antichrist himself indeed." Writing to Bradford 
in reference (" Works," 414,418) to the discussion 
on the Church given above, Ridley exclaims : 
" O good Lord, that they are so busy with you 
about the Church ! It is no new thing, brother, 
that is happened unto you ! for that was always 
the clamor of the wicked bishops and priests, 
against God's true prophets. i The temple of the 
Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
Lord ! ' and they said, ' The law shall not depart 
from the priest, nor wisdom from the elder ; ' and 
yet in them whom only they esteemed for priests 
and sages, there was neither God's law nor godly 
wisdom." 

The stress that Ridley lays on the necessity of 
sound doctrine to preserve church character is very 
observable. 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 173 

BISHOP LATIMER (d. 1555). 

Bishop Latimer, in his conference with Ridley, 
expresses himself in a similar manner. 

" The Scripture is not of any private interpreta- 
tion at any time. For such a one, though he be 
a layman, fearing God, is much more fit to 
understand holy Scripture than any arrogant and 
proud priest, yea, than the bishop himself, be he 
never so glistening and great in all his pontificals. 
. . . Let the Papists go with their long faith ; be 
thou contented with the short faith of the saint, 
which is revealed unto view the word of God 
written. Adieu to all popish fantasies, Amen. 
For one man having the Scripture and good 
reason for him, is more to be esteemed himself 
alone, than a thousand such as they either gath- 
ered together, or succeeding* one another " (p. 
114). 

BISHOP HOOPER (d. 1555). 

Bishop Hooper — Edward's favorite preacher, 
and who if Edward had lived would have exer- 
cised a most commanding influence upon the 
conduct of the Reformation — is most forcible in 
the expression of two views on this point. 

Hooper had differed with Ridley with respect 
to the continuance in use of the Roman vest- 
ment. These differences were settled. Ridley 
writes, " To my most dear brother, and reverend 
fellow-elder in Christ, John Hooper, grace and 



174 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

peace. . . . Forasmuch as I understand by your 
works, which I have yet but superficially seen, 
that we thoroughly agree and wholly consent to- 
gether in those things which are the grounds and 
substantial points of our religion, against the 
which the world so furiously rageth in these our 
days, howsoever in time past in swollen waters 
and circumstances of religion, your wisdom and 
my simplicity (I confess) have in some points 
varied," etc. 

In his " Declaration of Christ and his Office," 
1547, Hooper writes : " Such as teach the people 
to know the Church by these signs : namely, the 
traditions of men and the succession of bishops, 
teach wrong." In the " Confession of his Faith," 
written 1550, he says : " As concerning the minis- 
ters of the Church, I believe that the Church is 
bound to no sort of people, or any ordinary suc- 
cession of bishops, cardinals, or such like, but 
unto the very word of God ; and none of them 
should be believed but when they speak the word 
of God." In 1552, he charges his clergy to in- 
struct their people : " lest that any man should be 
seduced, believing himself to be bound unto any 
ordinary succession of bishops and priests, but 
only unto the word of God and the right use of 
his sacraments." ("Works," i. 82; ii. 90, 120.) 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 175 

ARCHDEACON PHILPOT (d. 1555). 

Archdeacon Philpot, an accomplished Can- 
onist under Edward, and a martyr, when the 
Archbishop of York urged : " Rome hath known 
succession of bishops, which your Church hath 
not ; ergo, that is the Catholic Church, and yours 
is not, because there is no such succession can be 
proved in your Church," replied : " I deny, my lord, 
that succession of bishops is an infallible point to 
know the Church by ; for there may be a succes- 
sion of bishops known in a place, and yet there 
be no church, as at Antioch, and Jerusalem, and 
in other places, where the Apostles abode as well 
as at Rome. But if you put to the succession 
of bishops, succession of doctrine withaV (as St. 
Augustine doth), I will grant it to be a good 
proof for the Catholic Church ; but a local suc- 
cession is nothing available. . . . Although you 
can prove the succession of bishops from Peter, 
yet this is not sufficient to prove Rome the Cath- 
olic Church, unless you can prove the profession 
of Peter's faith, whereupon the Catholic Church 
is builded, to have continued in his successors at 
Rome, and at this present time." (" Examina- 
tions," pp. 37, 137.) 

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER (d. 1556). 

It is not necessary to quote Archbishop Cran- 
mer in this connection, inasmuch as his views on 
this subject are acknowledged to be as compre- 



176 THE PRIMITITIVE EIRENICON. 

hensive as any of his contemporaries, and have 
been previously referred to in this volume. We see 
from the language of these most prominent and 
influential of the divines under Edward, that the 
exclusive uninterrupted episcopal succession the- 
ory, was by all rejected. 

The translator of Cranmer's " Confutation of 
Unwritten Verities," a contemporary, writes (p. 11, 
Parker Society ed.) : u Such gross ignorance (I 
would to God it were but ignorance indeed) is 
entered into their heads, and such arrogant bold- 
ness possesseth their hearts, that they are bold to 
affirm no church to be a true church of God, but 
that which standeth by ordinary succession of 
bishops, in such pompous and glorious sort as 
now is seen. ... As sweet agreeth with sour, 
black with white, darkness with light, and evil 
with good; even so this outward, seen, and visible 
Church, consisting of the ordinary succession of 
bishops, agreeth with Christ." The name of this 
author is not ascertained. 

We pass now to the reign of Elizabeth, the 
period of the revision of the Prayer Book. 

BISHOP JEWEL (d. 1571). 

And first we have Bishop Jewel, the most 
learned of the bishops, declaring in his " Apol- 
ogy," a public work : " God's grace is promised 
to a good mind, and to any one that feareth Him, 
not to sees and successions." In the " Defense of 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 177 

his Apology " (p. 201), he writes : " To be Peter's 
lawful successor, it is not sufficient to leap into 
Peter's stall. Lawful succession standeth not 
only in succession of place, but also and much 
rather, in doctrine and diligence." 

Harding, the Romanist, asks Jewel : " If you 
cannot show your bishoply pedigree, if you can 
prove no succession, then whereby hold you ? 
Tell us the original and first spring of your 
Church ! Show us the register of your bishops, 
continually succeeding one another from the be- 
ginning, so as that fails bishops have some one 
of the Apostles or apostolic men for his author 
and predecessor. How can you prove your vo- 
cation ? By what authority usurp you the ad- 
ministration of doctrine and sacraments ? What 
can you allege for the right and proof of your 
ministry ? Who hath called you ? Who hath laid 
hands on you ? By what example hath he done 
it ? How and by whom were you consecrated ? 
Who hath sent you ? Who hath committed to 
you the office you take upon you? Be you a 
priest or be you not ? If you be not, how dare 
you usurp the name and office of a bishop? If 
you be, who gave you orders ? The institution 
of a priest was never yet in the power of a 
bishop ? " 

To this argument, similar to that of Harps- 
field, what does this writer of the second " Book of 
Homilies," and publisher of our Articles, reply, in 
12 



178 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

words which were placed in the parish churches 
of England? 

" If it were certain that the religion and truth 
of God passeth ever more orderly by succession, 
and none otherwise, then were succession, where- 
of he hath told us so long a tale, a very good 
substantial argument of the truth. But Christ 
saith, by order of succession, ' The Scribes and 
Pharisees sit in Moses' chair.' Annas and 
Caiaphas, touching succession, were as well 
bishops as Aaron and Eliezar. Of succession, 
St. Paul saith unto the faithful at Ephesus : ' I 
know that after my departure hence, ravening 
wolves shall succeed me. And out of yourselves 
there shall (by succession) spring up men speak- 
ing perversely.' Therefore St. Hierome saith : 
4 They be not always the children of holy men 
that (by succession) have the places of holy men.' 
As the Scribes and Pharisees succeeded Moses, 
perverting and breaking the laws of Moses ; even 
so do the bishops of Rome this day succeed 
Christ, perverting and breaking the laws of 
Christ. . . . Such affiance some time had the 
Scribes and Pharisees in their succession. There- 
fore they said : ' We are the children of Abra- 
ham;' unto us hath God made his promises: 
< Art thou greater than our father Abraham ? ' 
As for Christ ' we know not from whence he 
came,' or what can he show for his succession. 
And when Christ began to reform their abuses 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 179 

and errors, they said unto him, i By what power 
doest thou these things. And who gave thee this 
authority ? ' "Where is thy succession ? Thus to 
maintain themselves in credit, for that they had 
continuance and succession from Aaron and sat 
in Moses' chair, they kept Christ quite out of * 
possession, and said unto Him, even as Mr. Hard- 
ing saith now unto us : ' Who ever taught us these 
things before thee? What ordinary succession 
and vocation had thou ? What bishop admitted 
thee ? Who confirmed thee ? Who allowed thee ? ' 
. . . All other things failing, they must hold 
only by succession ; and only because tljey sit in 
Moses' chair they must claim the possession of 
the whole. 

" This is the right and virtue of their succession. 
. . . We neither have bishops without church, 
nor church without bishops. Neither doth the 
Church of England this day depend of them 
whom you often call apostates, as if our Church 
were no church without them. . . . They are for 
a great part learned and grave and godly men, and 
are ashamed to see your follies. Notwithstand- 
ing, if there were not one, neither of them nor of 
us, left alive, yet would not therefore the whole 
Church of England flee to Loraine. . . . Whoso- 
ever is a member of Christ's body, whosoever is 
a child of the Church, whosoever is baptized in 
Christ and beareth his name, is fully invested 
with their priesthood, and therefore may justly be 



180 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON'. 

called a priest. And wheresoever there be three 
such together, as Tertullian saith, c yea, though 
they be only laymen, yet have they a church!' 
. . . God's name be blessed forever ! We want 
neither church nor priesthood, nor any kind of 
sacrifice that Christ hath left unto his faithful." 

" Faith cometh (not by succession, but) by hear- 
ing ; and hearing cometh (not of legacy or inher- 
itance from bishop to bishop, but) of the word of 
God. l Succession,' you say, ' is the chief way 
for any Christian man to avoid Antichrist.' I grant 
you if you mean the succession of doctrine. It 
is not sufficient to claim succession of place, it 
behoveth us rather to have regard to succession 
of doctrine." (« Works," iii. 320, 38, 48.) 

BISHOP PILKINGTON (died 1575). 

Bishop Pilkington, one of the Revisers, remarks 
(" Works," p. 600), " Succession in doctrine makes 
them the sons of the prophets and apostles, and 
not sitting in the same seat nor being bishops of 
the same place . . . There cannot be proved a suc- 
cession of their bishops in any one place of this 
realm since the Apostles. ... So stands the suc- 
cession of the Church not in mitres, palaces, lands, 
or lordships, but in teaching some religion and sort- 
ing out the contrary. . . . He that does these 
things is the true successor of the Apostles. . . . 
When they can bring the Apostles' doctrine or life, 
for example, to be like their life and teaching, they 
may say they follow the Apostles." 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 181 

dr. whittaker (died 1595). 

The learned Professor Whittaker, in reply to 
Bellarmin's " Disputation of Scripture " (p. 570), 
writes : " Though we should concede the succes- 
sion of that Church unbroken and entire, yet that 
succession would be a matter of no weight, be- 
cause we regard not the external succession of 
place and persons, but the internal one of faith 
and doctrine." And elsewhere he says: "Faith 
is, as it were, the soul of the succession, which 
faith, being wanting, the naked succession of 
persons is like a dead carcass without the soul. 
The Fathers indeed always much more regarded 
the succession of faith than any unbroken series 
of men." 

dr. willet (died 1621). 

Dr. Willet, in his " Synopsis Papismi" (p. 276), 
writes : " Every godly and faithful bishop is a 
successor of the Apostles. We deny it not, and 
so are all godly and faithful pastors and ministers. 
The province of succession, we see, is in the 
preaching of the Word, which appertaineth as 
well to other pastors and ministers as to bishops." 

dr. fulke (died 1589). 

Dr. Fulke, a noted antagonist of Popery, in his 
answer to Stapleton (p. 74), says : " The Scrip- 
ture requireth no succession of names, persons, or 
places, but of faith and doctrine ; and that we 



182 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

prove when we affirm our faith and doctrine by 
the doctrine of the Apostles. Neither had the 
Fathers any other meaning, in calling upon new 
upstart heresies for their succession, but by a 
succession of doctrine, as well as of persons." . . . 
And against Sanders (p. 26) : " The same au- 
thority of preaching and ministering the sacra- 
ments, of binding and loosing, which the Apostles 
had, is perpetual in the Church, in the bishop and 
elders, which are all successors of the Apostles." 

bishop bilson (died 1616). 

Bishop Bilson, appealed to by Keble in support 
of his views, makes this forcible statement, as 
quoted by Brown, in his "Letters to Pusey' 
(p. 288) : " The succession is of no weight, unless 
truth of doctrine and purity of life be added to it." 

dr. SUTCLIFFE (died 1629). 

Dr. Sutcliffe, also appealed to by Keble, thus 
writes : " Stapleton asserts that we (the Protes- 
tant churches) are destitute of the succession. 
And he thinks we are terribly pressed by this 
argument ; but without reason. For the exter- 
nal succession, which both heretics often have 
and the orthodox have not, is of no moment. 
Not even our adversaries themselves, indeed, are 
certain respecting their own succession. But we 
are certain, that our doctors have succeeded to 
the Apostles and prophets and most ancient 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 183 

Fathers. And moreover, if there is any weight 
in external succession, they have succeeded to the 
bishops and presbyters throughout Germany, 
France, England, and other countries, and were 
ordained by them." (« De vera Eccles." p. 37, 38.) 

CALFHiLL (died 1570). 

In his " Treatise on the Cross," p. 230, this divine, 
bishop elect of Worcester, writes : " 1. And who- 
soever will be successors unto the Apostles, must 
use this ministry, this trade of doctrine, which, if 
they continue in being lawfully called thereunto 
by God, and have gifts competent to approve their 
calling unto the world, they care not for the sign 
of the cross to be imprinted in them, the virtue 
whereof never departed from them. Certain it 
is that neither Scripture nor any learned father 
commendeth the blessing of prayer to us. And 
how your wisdom doth esteem the wagging of 
a bishop's fingers I greatly force not. I looked 
rather that ye should have commended the oil 
for anointing, which the greasy merchants will have 
in every mess. 

" 2. For the character indelebilis^ i the mark un- 
removable,' is thereby given. Yet there is a way 
to have it out well enough, to rub them well 
favorably with salt and ashes, or, if that will not 
serve, with a little soap." 



184 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

ARCHBISHOP BANCROFT (died 1610). 

u It is most apparent, and cannot be denied, but 
that Irenseus, Cyprian, Tertullian, Ambrose, 
Jerome, Augustine, and divers other ancient 
writers, do call the bishops the Apostles' succes- 
sors ; insomuch as some of them, especially the 
authors of the ecclesiastical histories, do draw long 
catalogues of the particular bishops' names that 
succeeded the Apostles, and other apostolical men 
whom they made bishops, which catalogues and 
manner of speech of the said Fathers, being used 
by them very fitly against such heretics as did 
arise up in their days, have since, in our time, 
been greatly abused by the Papists. Unto whom 
the learned men, that have stood for the truth 
against them, by writing have continually an- 
swered, that the Fathers' arguments, drawn from 
the said personal succession of bishops, were 
very effectual so long as the succession of the 
Apostles' doctrine did concur; wherewithal that 
the Fathers, in urging of the first, had ever an 
especial eye to the second, some point of doctrine 
being ever called in question by the said heretics." 
(" Survey," chap, xxvii. p. 333.) 

ARCHDEACON MASON (died 1621). 

" That assertion of Stapleton's, to wit, that 
i wheresoever this succession is, there is also a 
true Catholic Church,' cannot be defended ; but 
Bellarmin saith, far more truly: 'It is not 
necessarily gathered that the Church is always 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 185 

where there is succession.' For, besides this out- 
ward succession, there must be likewise the in- 
ward succession of doctrine to make a true church. 
Irenseus describeth those which have a true sue* 
cession from the Apostles, i to be such .as with 
the succession of the episcopal office have received 
the certain grace of truth.' And this kind of suc- 
cession he calleth 'the principal. succession.' So 
Gregory Nazianzen, having said 4 that Athanasius 
succeeded St. Mark in godliness,' addeth, that 
1 this succession in godliness is properly to be ac- 
counted succession ; for he that holdeth the same 
doctrine is also partaker of the same throne ; but 
he that is against the doctrine must be reported 
an adversary, even while he sitteth on the throne, 
for the latter hath the name of succession, but the 
former hath the thing itself, and the truth.' There- 
fore you must prove your succession in doctrine, 
otherwise you must be holden for adversaries, even 
while you sit on the throne." (" On the Consecra- 
tion of the Bishops, &c, in the Church of Eng- 
land," book ii. chap. i. p. 41-43.) Archdeacon 
Mason elsewhere remarks : " Seeing a priest is 
equal to a bishop in the power of order, he hath 
equally intrinsical power to give orders." (Tract, 
p. 160.) 

It is evident, from these prominent writers of 
the reign of Elizabeth, that the same view was 
taken of succession, as was held by the Compilers 
under Edward. 



186 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

BISHOP BABINGTON (died 1610). 

If we pass to the next generation of divines 
trained under the Revisers, we find Bishop Bab- 
ington, of the Commission of 1604, declaring : 
" They are true successors of the Apostles that 
succeed in virtue, holiness, truth, etc. . . . Not 
that sit on the same stool. Faith cometh by 
hearing, saith St. Paul (not by succession), and 
hearing cometh (not by legacy or inheritance from 
bishop to bishop), but by the Word of God." 

dean field (died 1616). 

Dean Field on the same Commission, writes 
(Bk. ii. ch. 30) : « Thus still we see that truth of 
doctrine is a necessary note whereby the Church 
must be known and discovered, and not ministry, 
or succession, or anything else without it." 

Bk. iii. ch. 39, he writes : " It is most evident, 
that that wherein a bishop excelleth a presbyter 
is not a distinct power and order, but an eminence 
and dignity only, specially yielded to one above 
all the rest of the same rank for order's sake, and 
to preserve the peace and unity of the Church. 
If bishops become enemies to God and true relig- 
ion, in case of such necessity, as the care and 
government of the Church is devolved to the pres- 
byters remaining Catholic and being of a better 
spirit, so the duty of ordaining such as are to as- 
sist or succeed them in the ministry pertains to 
them likewise." 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 187 

bishop davenant (died 1641). 

Bishop Davenant, a deputy to the Synod of 
Dort, observes : " All boast about local succession 
is empty, unless a succession of true doctrine be 
also proved." (Alport's " Life of Davenant," i. 20.) 

bishop fraxcis white (died 1624). 

Bishop Francis White, of Ely (p. 64) : " The 
true visible Church is named apostolical, not be- 
cause of local and personal succession of bishops, 
(only or principally), but because it retaineth the 
faith and doctrine of the Apostles. Personal or 
local succession only, and in itself, maketh not 
the Church apostolical." 

dr. thomas white (died 1604). 

Dr. White, Prebendary of St. Paul's, in reply to 
a Jesuit's objection, " The Protestant Church is 
not apostolic because they cannot derive their 
pedigree lineally without interruption from the 
Apostles, as the Roman Church can from St. 
Peter, but are forced to acknowledge some other, 
as Calvin, Luther, or some such," replies : " Our 
answer is, that the succession required to make a 
church apostolic, must be defined by the doctrine, 
and not by the place or person. Wheresoever the 
true faith contained in the Scriptures is properly 
embraced, there is the whole and full nature of 
the Apostolic Church. For the external succes- 
sion we care not." 



188 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

archbishop laud (died 1645). 

Archbishop Laud, to whom we are indebted 
for the introduction of exclusive churchmansbip 
into the English Church, makes a remarkable 
concession with respect to the point we are con- 
sidering. 

He writes, in reply to Fisher, the Jesuit : " Be- 
sides for succession in general, I shall say this : 
It is a great happiness where it may be had visi- 
ble and continued, and a great conquest over the 
mutability of this present world. But I do not 
find any one of the ancient Fathers that makes 
local, personal, visible, and continued succession 
a necessary sign or mark of the Church in any one 
place. . . . Most evident it is, that the succession 
which the Fathers meant is not tied to place or 
person, but it is tied to purity of doctrine." Else- 
where he says : " I have endeavored to unite the 
Calvinists and Lutherans ; nor have I absolutely 
unchurched them. I say indeed in my book 
against Fisher, according to St. Jerome, No 
bishop, no church ; and that none but a bishop 
can ordain, except in cases of inevitable neces- 
sity ; and whether that be the case in the foreign 
churches the world may judge." 

With regard to the necessity of an uninter- 
rupted, tactual, episcopal succession, to constitute 
a valid ministry, we present the opinions of a 
few modern Episcopal writers of acknowledged 
eminence. 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 189 
DEAN PEARSON. 

Dean Pearson, of Salisbury, in his Charge, 1842, 
objects to " this assertion of the absolute necessity 
of the apostolic succession of episcopacy to the 
existence of a Christian Church, or to the validity 
and efficacy of the Christian Sacrament ; a posi- 
tion which, however countenanced by the opin- 
ions, whether of ancient or modern writers, and 
consistent as it is with the spirit of Romanism, I 
venture to affirm, without fear of successful con- 
tradiction, has never been assumed by the Church 
of England ; which, while asserting in the preface 
to her offices of Consecration and Ordination, the 
apostolic origin of the third order of ministers 
in Christ's Church, and while lamenting by her 
accredited writers, as an imperfection and defect, 
the want of the episcopal order in some of the 
Reformed churches on the Continent, does not 
excommunicate, or on that account refuse to ac- 
knowledge them, while adhering to the orthodox 
faith, as to all that is essential, as true and living 
branches of Christ's Universal Church." 

DEAN ALFORD. 

This modern standard commentator, on the 
proof text of Scripture, upon which the scheme 
of Apostolic Succession is based, Matt, xxviii. 
16-20, writes : — 

"We are therefore obliged to conclude that others 
were present (beside the eleven). Whether these 



190 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

others were the ' five hundred brethren at once,' 
of whom Paul speaks, does not appear. ' Go ye 
therefore and teach} etc. Demonstrably, this was 
not understood as spoken to the Apostles only ; 
but to all the brethren. To understand ' with you ' 
only of the Apostles and their successors is to de- 
stroy the whole force of these most weighty words. 
Descending even into literal exactness, we may 
see that i teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I have commanded you} makes i them ' into 
{ you ' as soon as they are 6 made disciples.' The 
command is to the universal Church — to be per- 
formed, in the nature of things, by her ministers 
and teachers, the manner of appointing which is 
not here prescribed, but to be learned in the un- 
foldings of Providence, recorded in the Acts of 
the Apostles, who by his special ordinance were 
the founders and first builders of that Church ; but 
whose office, on that very account, precluded the 
idea of succession or renewal" 

BISHOP O'BRIEN. 

Bishop O'Brien, of Ossory, writes, in his Charge, 
1842: "All our great divines, who maintain the 
reality and advantages of a succession ' from the 
Apostles' time,' of episcopally consecrated bish- 
ops, and episcopally ordained ministers to the 
Church, and who rejoice in the possession of it by 
our own Church, as a signal blessing and priv- 
ilege, not 6nly do not maintain that this is abso- 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 191 

lutely essential to the being of a church, but are 
at pains to make it clear that they do not hold 
that it is." 

BISHOP HOPKINS. 

Our late presiding Bishop Hopkins, in his " Re- 
ply to Milner," vol. ii. p. 3, makes a similar state- 
ment : " Dr. Milner asserts that the Church of 
England unchurches all other Protestant commun- 
ions which are without the apostolical succession 
of bishops. Whereas, on the contrary, not only 
does Hooker, whom he quotes on the previous 
page, but all the Reformers, together with Jewel, 
Andre wes, Usher, Bramhall, and in a word, the 
whole of our standard divines, agree in maintain- 
ing that Episcopacy is not necessary to the being, 
but only to the well-being of the Church; and 
hence they grant the names of churches to all 
denominations of Christians who hold the funda- 
mental doctrines of the gospel, notwithstanding the 
imperfection and irregularity of their ministry. 
. . . This allegation of Dr. Milner, therefore, 
is founded on anything but truth. And it is not 
easy to believe that he was ignorant of his error, 
because the contrary is apparent in the Thirty-nine 
Articles of our Church, and in the whole strain of 
her acts and history." 

DR. WHARTON. 

Dr. Wharton, the most distinguished scholar of 
the Committee on the Revision of the American 



192 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

Prayer Book, thus expresses his views : " The 
pretense of tracing up the Roman Church to the 
times of the Apostles, is grounded on mere soph- 
istry. The succession which Roman Catholics 
thus unfairly ascribe to their Church, belongs to 
every other and exclusively to none. But that 
portion of the Christian Church is surely best 
entitled to this claim, which teaches in the great- 
est purity the doctrine of the Apostles. . . . 
' They have not the inheritance of Peter, who have 
not Peter's faith,' says St. Ambrose" (vol. ii. p. 
313). 

DR. SMITH. 

Dr. Smith, of the same Committee, says : " There 
is greater weight and moment of Christianity in 
charity, than in all the doubtful questions about 
which the Protestant Churches have been puzzling 
themselves and biting and devouring each other 
since the days of the Reformation. ... It will 
not be so much a question at the last day, of what 
church we w T ere, nor whether we were of Paul or 
Apollos, but whether we were of Christ Jesus, 
and had the true mark of Christianity in our lives." 

ARCHBISHOP MUSGRAVE. 

We close with the words of the late lamented 
Primates of England. Archbishop Musgrave, of 
York, thus charges his clergy, 1842 : " You will 
exceed all just bounds, if you are continually in- 
sisting upon the necessity of a belief in, and the 



TRUE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 193 

certainty of, the apostolical succession in the 
bishops and presbyters of our Church, as the only 
security for the efficacy of the sacraments, so that 
those who do not receive them from men so ac- 
credited, and appointed to minister, cannot par- 
take of the promises and consolations of the 
gospel; and are, therefore, in peril^of their salva- 
tion, and left to the uncovenanted mercies of God, 
which may be, in the end, no mercies at all to 
them. . . . This would be to overstep the limits 
of prudence and humility, and arrogantly to set 
up a claim, which neither Scripture, nor the for- 
mularies and various offices of the Church, nor 
the writings of her best divines, nor the common 
sense of mankind will allow. 

" To spread abroad this notion, would be to 
make ourselves the derision of the world ; it would 
be contrary to the mind of St. Paul. . . . With 
respect to this, and to some other of the questions 
now brought into prominence, our Reformers 
appear to have been of the same mind as a pious 
prelate of former times, who distinguished be- 
tween what is essential to the being, and what is 
essential to the well-being of the Church : — a 
wise distinction, which good sense and Christian 
charity should lead us all ever to keep in sight." 

ARCHBISHOP SUMNER. 

This Christian view of this subject is nowhere 
more forcibly expressed than by the apostolic 

13 



194 THE PRIMITIVE EIRENICON. 

Archbishop Sumner, of Canterbury, whose words 
form a fitting close to this inquiry : " The surest 
sign of an Apostle is that in which St. Paul took 
comfort, 'the work of faith, and labor of love, 
and patience of hope,' which his disciples exer- 
cised, which resulted from his ministry, and 
proved that God was with him. To 'turn many 
to righteousness,' that is real preeminence. To 
1 win souls to Christ,' that is lasting honor. To 
6 take heed to ourselves and to the doctrine,' that 
is both to save ourselves and them that hear us. 
To c preach the Word, to be instant in season and 
out of season ; to testify, both publicly and from 
house to house, repentance towards God and 
faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ,' — this is to 
be a successor to the Apostles" 



APPENDIX A. 



ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. 

The writer has recently met with an interesting 
work by an anonymous author, entitled " The 
Rights of the Christian Church, asserted against 
the Romish, and all other Priests who claim an 
independent Power over it." The third edition 
was printed in London, 1707. The writer com- 
mences his preface thus : " Nothing is more dis- 
puted at present, than who is the best Church- 
man, both High and Low Church laying claim 
to it." 

This book, written by a Churchman of exten- 
sive learning, contains much that bears upon mat- 
ters discussed in the preceding pages. Among 
other statements we find, on p. 50 of the preface, 
that Archbishop Laud forbade the works of Jewel, 
Willet, and Foxe to be reprinted. He quotes 
from a remarkable speech of Lord Falkland, a 
distinguished Churchman and Royalist, delivered 
in Parliament, Feb. 9, 1640, these words, which 
apply well to our own times : " Mr. Speaker, — He 



196 APPENDIX A. 

is a great stranger in Israel, who knows not that 
this kingdom hath long labored under many and 
great oppressions, both in religion and liberty ; 
and his acquaintance here is not great, or his in- 
genuity less, who does not know and acknowledge, 
that a great, if not a principal cause of both these 
hath been some bishops and their adherents. 

" Mr. Speaker, a little search will serve to find 
them to have been the destruction of unity under 
pretense of uniformity ; to have brought in super- 
stition and scandal under the titles of reverence 
and decency ; to have defiled our Church, by adorn- 
ing our churches ; to have slackened the strictness 
of that union which was formerly betwixt us and 
those of our religion beyond the sea ; an action 
as impolitic as ungodly. 

" As Sir Thomas More says of the Casuists, 
their business was not to keep men from sinning, 
but to inform them, quam prope ad peccatum sive 
peccato liceat accedere ; so it seemed their work 
(meaning .the prelates) was to try how much of a 
Papist might be brought in without Popery, and 
to destroy as much as they could of the gospel, 
without bringing themselves into danger of being 
destroyed by law. 

" Mr. Speaker, to go yet farther : some of them 
have so industriously labored to deduce them- 
selves from Rome, that they have given great 
suspicion, that in gratitude they desire to return 
thither, or at least meet it half way. Some have 



APPENDIX A. 197 

evidently labored to bring in an English though 
not a Roman Popery ; I mean not the outside 
only and dress of it, but equally absolute, a blind 
obedience of the people upon the clergy, and of 
the clergy upon themselves ; and have opposed 
Papacy beyond the sea, that they might settle 
one this side the water. Nay, common fame is 
more than ordinarily false, if none of them have 
found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome to 
the preferments of England, and to be so abso- 
lutely, directly, and cordially Papist, that it is all 
.£1500 per Ann. can do to keep them from con- 
fessing it." 

" The Church of England," writes this author, 
" was so far from thinking a succession of bishops 
necessary to her being, that she did not believe 
Episcopacy to be of divine appointment ; for the 
book entitled, ; The Institution of Christian Man,' 
subscribed by the clergy in convocation, and con- 
firmed by Parliament, owns bishops and presbyters 
by Scripture to be the same ; and yet the Vatican 
thought themselves at liberty to have an order su- 
perior to that of presbyters, — a sufficient acknowl- 
edgment that they thought no form of govern- 
ment fixed by Christ. And what the sense of our 
Church was in 1610, is plain from Archbishop 
Bancroft and the rest of the bishops owning the 
ordination of presbyters to be valid, and therefore 
refusing to reordain the Scottish presbyters who 
were then to be made bishops ; declaring withal, 



198 APPENDIX A. 

i 

that to doubt it was to doubt whether there was any 
lawful vocation in most of the Reformed churches. 

" And even till after the Restoration this notion 
generally obtained, it being declared 12 Car. II., 
That every ecclesiastical person or minister ', being 
ordained by any ecclesiastical persons before the 
21st of December last^ was to enjoy his benefice if 
he came into a vacant one ; which it is to be pre- 
sumed would never have been allowed if ordina- 
tion by bishops had been thought necessary. And 
even at this day presbyters with us not only ex- 
ercise all manner of episcopal jurisdiction, but 
have, equally with the bishops, a necessary vote in 
the supreme acts of church government, the mak- 
ing of ecclesiastical laws ; and before the Act of 
Uniformity there was nothing I know of to hinder 
persons ordained by presbyters from being capable 
of church preferment, — Francis, Master of the 
Temple, having no other ; and Bishop Morton sent 
one Calendrini, who was unknown to him, to the 
ministers of the Walloon Church in London for 
ordination, who being met in a colloque or synod, 
did ordain him, and he had a brothership of the 
Savoy conferred on him as a minister of the 
Church of England ; the account of which may 
be seen at large in the records of the Walloon 
Church in London. 

"And this ought not to be thought strange, 
since the Papists at this day allow the ordination 
of Abbots Sovereign, who are only presbyters, to 



APPENDIX A. ' 199 

be valid and regular ; and the famous Alexandrian 
Church for the first 235 years had no bishops, but 
who had hands laid on them by presbyters only. 
Eutych. c Annals,' Pococke's ed. p. 328 ; Jerome, 
< ad Evagr.,' p. 85. And it is very probable that 
those bishops who converted so many of our 
northern parts to Christianity, were ordained by 
the Abbot of Nye, a presbyter, to whose ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction Scotland was subject; although 
some who cannot agroe about the person, suppose 
he had a journeyman bishop to ordain for him. 
Bed., ' EccL Hist.,' lib. iii. c.4; Usser, ' Eccl. Hist.,' 
prim. org. p. 707. . . . 

" ' Tis certain, the opinion of bishops being 
necessary to the Church did not prevail, even with 
the clergy, till the treaties of marriage with Spain 
and France ; but then such unhappy notions gen- 
erally obtained as tended to disunite Protestants, 
advance Popery, and establish slavery. 

" And when our ambassadors went no longer to 
Charenton, and other such meetings, and the Lau- 
dian faction would no longer own them for 
churches of Christ, it was then no wonder they 
suffered persecution; for with what grace could 
we quarrel with the Papists whom we own to be 
a true Church, for their sake, whom we accounted 
no Church ! 

" And how fatal our breaking off communion 
with the Reformed churches was to the common 
Protestant cause, we may learn from our famous 



200 . APPENDIX A. 

historian, who gives an account (Clarendon's 
'Hist.? vol. 2, pp. 74,75),— 

"' That in the reign of Edward VL, when the 
Reformed churches were persecuted abroad, great 
numbers of French, Dutch, and Walloons came 
over to England with their families, and settled 
many useful manufactures here ; how that king, 
with great piety and policy, granted them many 
immunities, the free exercise of their religion, and 
churches in London, Norwich, and Canterbury, 
whereby the wealth of those places marvelously 
increased.' He adds, 'that Queen Elizabeth en- 
larged their privileges, and made great use of these 
people in her transactions with France and Hol- 
land, and by their means kept up an useful inter- 
est in all foreign dominions, where the Protestant 
religion was tolerated.' 

" He then goes on and says : i That some years 
before the troubles, when the power of the 
Churchmen grew more transcendent, and indeed 
the faculties and understanding of the lay coun- 
selors more dull, lazy, and inactive (for without 
the last the first could have done no hurt), the 
Church grew jealous that the countenancing of 
another discipline here by order of the State would 
at least diminish the reputation and dignity of 
the Episcopal government, and give- countenance 
to the factious and schismatical party here to ex- 
pect such a toleration. And therefore the State 
conniving, or not interposing, the bishops pro- 



APPENDIX A. 201 

ceeded against them ; so that many left the king- 
dom, to the lessening the manufacture there of 
kerseys and narrow cloths ; and what was worse, 
the transporting the mystery into foreign ports.' 

" He further shows, that whereas our ambassa- 
dors and foreign ministers, in any part where the 
Reformed religion was exercised, frequented their 
churches, gave all possible countenance to their 
profession ; and particularly the ambassador at 
Paris had constantly frequented the Church at 
Charenton, whereby he kept up necessary corre- 
spondence with the most active and powerful per- 
sons of that persuasion, to the great benefit of 
this kingdom, by being let into their secrets of 
state, and deriving all necessary intelligence from 
them ; the contrary to all this was then practiced, 
and some advertisements, if not instructions, 
given to the ambassadors there, to forbear any 
extraordinary commerce with men of that pro- 
fession ; and the Lord Scudamore, then ambassa- 
dor, not only declined going to Charenton, but 
furnished his own chapel with such ornaments 
(to wit, candles on the communion table, and the 
like) as gave great offense and umbrage to those 
of the Reformation there who had not seen the 
like ; besides, he was careful to publish that the 
Church of England looked not on the Huguenots 
as part of their communion, which, my Lord Clar- 
endon says, was too much and too industriously 
discoursed at home." (p. 337). 



202 APPENDIX A. 

" And this favorite author of High Church, 
through the whole course of his history, cannot 
forbear owning, that almost the whole body of 
the people, as well as the inferior clergy, were 
scandalized and offended at the behavior of the 
bishops and their followers, which was then 
thought to have a tendency to Popery, especially 
the worse part of it, — the dominion and tyranny 
of the clergy ; and it was this which drew so 
many petitions and remonstrances from several 
Parliaments, both in England and Scotland, all 
aloud complaining that Popery was fomented and 
encouraged, and the Protestants persecuted and 
oppressed, by those very laws designed against 
the Papists ; nor was this the opinion only of the 
people at home, but of the Protestant churches 
abroad, who all took part against the king on that 
account. And my Lord Clarendon, notwithstand- 
ing all his palliating, is forced to own that the 
bishops, by this extraordinary conduct of perse- 
cuting the Protestant churches at home, and by 
separating from the foreign churches abroad, did 
it with a design, if not to unite ivith the common 
adversary, yet to show their good inclinations. 
And those ridiculous innovations, brought into 
the Church by Laud, could have no other end 
than to make our separation greater from other 
Protestants, and to bring us to a nearer conform- 
ity to the Church of Rome, but the people not 
enduring those innovations, it put a stop to fur- 
ther attempts of that kind." 



APPENDIX A. 203 

Elsewhere he writes : " Our first Reformers 
were as Low for church, as they were High for 
religion. And as they owned all for their brethren 
who separated from the errors of Popery, how- 
much soever they differed from them in forms of 
ecclesiastical government ; so they did what was 
possible to root all claim in the clergy to an 
independent power. . . . 'Twas by virtue of 
this communion of saints which obtained among 
the Reformers, that they so justly censured the 
uncharitableness of the Papists. But are the 
Highflyers, who confine the Church of Christ to a 
smaller number, and are so far from communicat- 
ing with other Reformed churches either at home 
or abroad, that they claim those who do so as 
schismatics and heretics, more charitable ? Is not 
this acting in defiance of the Apostles' Creed, 
which requires communion of saints ; except they 
suppose the Catholic Church in so deplorable a 
condition, as that there are no saints except 
among themselves ? " 

With reference to Cranmer, this author writes, 
on p. 178 : " That great Reformer and glorious 
martyr, Archbishop Cranmer (at a consult of the 
most eminent divines of the nation, in 1540, 
where, to avoid the inconvenience of verbal dis- 
putes, they gave their opinions in writing), affirms : 
4 That the ceremonies and solemnities used in 
admitting bishops and priests, are not of neces- 
sity, but only for good order and seeming fashion, 



204 APPENDIX A. 

and that there is no more promise of God that 
grace is given in committing of the ecclesiastical 
than civil office. He that is appointed to be a 
bishop or a priest (between whom, he says, there 
was at first no distinction), needs no consecration 
by the Scripture, for election or appointing there- 
unto is sufficient' " 

There is no proof that Cranmer ever changed 
his mind on this subject. "We have shown it was 
the view of the Alexandrian Church, as it was, 
most probably, of all the Primitive churches. 

On p. 349, we have this interesting statement : 
" It was thought so little a crime for laymen to 
preach in Queen Elizabeth's time, that, as Dr. 
Langham and Mr. Fuller report, the High Sheriff 
of Oxford, Mr. Tavernour, with his gold chain 
about his neck, and his sword by his side, 
preached before the University of Oxford in St. 
Mary's ; and that he did, not out of ostentation, 
but of charity to the scholars. So that the Uni- 
versity have as little reason as the Presbyterians to 
preach up the necessity of being united to a 
bishop ; and they are, though they rail at the 
thing, at the best but occasional conformists 
when they communicated with churches subject 
to bishops. And nothing can better show the 
sense of the clergy in former times as to these 
points, than modeling the University after this 



APPENDIX A. 205 

This volume shows clearly how the same con-- 
trovesies are reproduced in after ages, and that 
the weakness of human nature makes true the 
old adage, that " Eternal vigilance is the price of 
religious and civil liberty." 



APPENDIX B. 



CONFIRMATORY EVIDENCE. 

Through the kindness of a friend who has re- 
cently imported the book, the attention of the 
writer has been directed to a volume of singular 
interest and value, entitled " Whose are the 
Fathers ? By John Harrison, Curate of Pits- 
moor, Sheffield. London: 1867, pp. 728." In 
it are given a catena of fifty-four Fathers of the 
first six centuries, with three later writers, to- 
gether with thirty-seven divines of the Church of 
England of the Reformation period and later, 
all more or less bearing on the questions concern- 
ing the Church and ministry, at present in dis- 
pute. In fullness we have seen nothing equal to 
it. Let our laymen of worldly means give this 
and similar works a wide circulation ! 

We make a few extracts from writers not 
hitherto quoted, and bearing on our subject. 

On p. 226 we read : " But Jerome does give 
some account of a person in some respect superior 
to an ordinary presbyter from the time of St. 
Mark : c For at Alexandria,' " etc. 



APPENDIX B. 207 

" Mr. Percival says : 4 Observe, the utmost that 
can be made of this passage, by itself, is, that 
presbyters at Alexandria had a voice in the ap- 
pointment of the patriarch, which, in other places, 
rested with the bishop of the province, and even 
this is not distinctly stated. Jerome does not say 
the bishop was chosen by the presbyters, but 
from among them, nor does he say by whom he 
was placed in the higher degree.' 

" Mr. Palmer also states : ' But St. Jerome does 
not say that the bishop thus elected was not after- 
wards consecrated by bishops.' (B. vi. ch. iv. 
vol. ii. p. 314.) 

" Both Percival and Palmer would fain make a 
fool of this learned presbyter. For, if bishops 
performed their parts, as was customary in the 
time of Jerome r in these promotions of all these 
Alexandrian bishops, where could have been the 
relevancy of his referring to them ? Let the 
whole of the Epistle of Jerome to Evagrius be 
well considered as given above, and the reader 
will be quite certain that the promotion of the 
Alexandrian bishop, whatever it was, came from 
the presbyters, and that bishops, such as existed 
in the time of Jerome, had no part in it. This 
is strongly confirmed both by Amalarius and 
Eutychius. 

" Nothing can be plainer from the context than 
that Jerome teaches that the bishop was chosen 
by the presbyters, though he does not use the exact 



208 APPENDIX B. 

words : c Just as deacons may elect one of them- 
selves . . . and call him archdeacon,' so did the 
presbyters choose one of themselves, and name 
him bishop. Mr. Palmer so translates the pas- 
sage, ' The presbyters always chose one of them- 
selves.' 

" Amalarius did not consider the presbyter so 
promoted to be a bishop at all, in the modern 
sense of the term. Hence he adduced the case 
as relating to the consecration of presbyters, and 
having adduced it, remarks : ' The consecration 
of an archdeacon is well known to us^ An arch- 
deacon has the same consecration as the others 
have, but by the election of his brethren he is 
placed first.' 

" It is plain Amalarius understood that this Al- 
exandrian presbyter, placed in a higher rank, and 
called bishop, had no consecration different from 
his brethren." 

AMALARIUS. 

The. writer, here introduced for the first time, 
was not, according to Chalmers, Amalarius, 
Archbishop of Treves, but Amalarius Symphosius, 
who, according to the " New American Encyclo- 
paedia," flourished in the eighth century, and was 
a Roman Catholic writer of great influence in 
France. 

Quoting Jerome, Amalarius proceeds : " Let us 
see why the name of presbyter passed over to 
that of bishop. Ambrose says, on the Epistle to 



APPENDIX B. 209 

Timothy, i But what is the cause ? . . . The 
blessed Apostles having departed, in subsequent 
times, they who. were ordained after them to rule 
the churches could not compare with those chiefs ; 
nor had they the testimony of miracles equal to 
them, but seemed also in many other things to be 
inferior to them. They thought it to be a weighty 
affair to claim to themselves the name of the 
Apostles, therefore they divided the names, and 
some of them left the name of the presbytership 
to the presbyters. But others who were endued 
with the power of ordination were called bishops, 
so that they might most fully know that they 
were the rulers of the churches.' 

"Jerome explains, ' What more has a bishop 
than a presbyter,' saying in the Epistle to Evag- 
rius, often repeated, ' For what does a bishop 
do, except in the case of ordination, which a pres- 
byter may not do ? ' And he explains by w T hat 
appointment a bishop should be appointed, in his 
tract upon Titus, saying, ' Therefore, as presby- 
ters know that it is by the custom of the Church 
that they are to be subject to him that is placed 
over them, so let the bishop know that they are 
above presbyters rather by custom than divine 
appointment,' etc. . . . 

"According to the authority of the Fathers, that 
is to say, the Apostle Paul, Ambrose the Arch- 
bishop, and Jerome the Presbyter, the consecra- 

14 



210 APPENDIX B. 

tion for a bishop to sacrifice was made in the 
ordination of a presbyter. 

" The office of bishop and priest is almost one." 
(" Whose are the Fathers," pp. 599, 600.) 

Harrison quotes, moreover, the Bishop of Seville, 
a. d. 600 : " To presbyters as well as to bishops 
is committed the dispensing of the mysteries of 
God ; they are set over the churches of Christ, and 
in the mingling of the body and blood of Christ, 
they are alike with the bishops, and in the office 
of preaching to the people ; only for the greater 
honor of the bishop, and preventing schisms, the 
power of ordination was restricted to him." 

Also, he quotes the Canon Law : "A bishop is 
the same as a presbyter, and by custom alone 
bishops are over presbyters — as Jerome saith. 
... A bishop should not regard himself as a 
lord, but as a colleague of the presbyters." 

The Fourth Council of Carthage, a. d. 398, " In 
whatsoever place the bishop sits, it is not allowed 
the presbyters to stand. The bishop may sit on 
a higher seat in the church, and in the session of 
the presbyters ; but within the house should re- 
gard himself as a colleague of the presbyters." 

TOSTATUS. 

An important extract is given from the works 
of Tostatus, Bishop of Avila in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, as quoted by the celebrated Huguenot 
Claude, to show that this writer held that episco- 



APPENDIX B. 211 

pal power came from the Church and not from 
consecration by prelates : " That it is the same in 
the keys of the Church, that Jesus Christ gave 
them to the whole Church in the person of St. 
Peter, and that it is the Church that communicates 
them to the prelates, but which, notwithstanding, 
communicates them without depriving itself of 
them ; so that the Church has them in respect of 
origin and virtue, and the prelates have them in 
respect of use ; the Church has them virtually be- 
cause she can give them to a prelate by election, 
and she has them originally also. For the power 
of a prelate does not take its origin from itself, 
but from the Church, by means of the election 
that it makes of him. The Church that chose 
him gives him that jurisdiction, but as for the 
Church, it receives it from nobody after its having 
once received it from Jesus Christ. The Church, 
therefore, has the keys originally and virtually, 
and whensoever she gives them to a prelate, she 
does not give them to him after the manner she 
has them, to wit, originally and virtually, but she 
gives them to him only as to use." (In " Numer." 
cap. xv. quest. 48, 49.) 

This Roman writer takes the view of the Alex- 
andrian Church, that the authority of the bishop 
comes from his election, not the mistaken view of 
many, that the consecration by the hands of other 
bishops confers it, — an error which has led to so 
much division and evil in the Church. 



212 APPENDIX B. 

After a thorough examination of all that the 
Fathers have written on succession, this able 
writer thus gives his conclusions : — 

HARRISON. 

" We believe that a moderate Episcopacy is 
more in accordance with Scripture and antiquity 
than any other form of church government. Our 
own views on this point will be given in a dis- 
tinct chapter. ... It is true, as we have seen, 
that the person who among his fellow-presbyters 
was a primus inter pares, in process of time, and 
especially in the fourth century, became devel- 
oped into one who had absolute authority over 
the presbyters. But we believe that the Church, 
in departing so generally, if not universally from 
primitive practice, departed also from that which 
was of divine institution." . . . 

" At present it is sufficient for our purpose to 
show that the doctrine of apostolical succession 
as held by these Anglicans, has no foundation in 
the present ordinal. The ordinal itself does not 
teach it. . . . 

" It is not to be doubted that there has been a 
succession of bishops, and presbyters, and dea- 
cons, and laity, from the time that some apostle 
or apostolic man laid the foundation of a Chris- 
tian Church in this country. But this is not 
what these Anglicans mean by succession. 
There had been in these realms, from a very re- 



APPENDIX B. 213 

mote period, a succession of kings, with more or 
less interruption. But this is not the kind of suc- 
cession held by these Anglicans. For this, in the 
strictest sense, is hereditary ; whereas in the suc- 
cession of bishops, there is no hereditary title to 
the office ; for the series of bishops has not fol- 
lowed the line of any family or class of Christians, 
but has been taken indiscriminately from the 
mass. If then none of these senses can be at- 
tributed to this Anglican succession, what does it 
really mean ? As far as its meaning can be ob- 
tained from the mists of confusion and the mazes 
of sophistry, it denotes an unbroken continuation 
of the commission first given to the Apostles, 
accompanied with a certain exclusive spiritual 
aptitude contained in the transferred commission 
to discharge the office of an apostle, in modern 
times called a bishop ; and this aptitude, or spirit- 
ual qualification, is supposed to be transmitted 
in unbroken continuity from one bishop to another, 
through the channel of a form called ordination. 
It will be found that the Fathers, though they 
occasionally use the terms equivalent to c succes- 
sion ' and i successors,' have not given the re- 
motest hint that by these terms they mean what 
these Anglicans mean by them. . . . 

"These Fathers^ (Tertullian and Epiphanius) 
did not place the validity of the Christian ministry 
upon the supposed uninterrupted succession of 
any class of men from the Apostles, which, in 



214 APPENDIX B. 

fact, is a fanciful and comparatively modern 
notion, and was unknown to the Fathers of the 
first six centuries. . . . The succession they 
appealed to in the apostolic churches, was not a 
succession of men deriving a commission from the 
Apostles through an unbroken line of ordainers, 
but a succession of pastors, each one entering 
into the vacated charge of his predecessor, and all 
maintaining the Christian doctrine ; and this fact 
of succession they used as an argument against 
the novel opinions of the heretics of their time. 

" But certain Anglo- Catholics lay the whole 
stress upon a succession of men receiving a com- 
mission from the Apostles in an unbroken line, 
and suppose an indelible character fixed upon 
them, which neither heresy in doctrine, idolatry in 
worship, immorality in life, nor schism in prac- 
tice, can efface. The Fathers, and Irenseus in 
particular, did not consider even their own kind 
of succession as a necessary mark of a true or 
Catholic Church ; they rather urged it as an argu- 
ment of the truth of their doctrine" 

THE VIA MEDIA. 

Speaking of the exclusive successionists, Har- 
rison forcibly remarks : " By a favorite expression 
they define their position to be via ?nedia, that 
is, midway between Lambeth and the Vatican, 
Canterbury and Rome. The fact is, they want 
to be at Rome without leaving Canterbury. The 



APPENDIX B. 215 

golden cords that bind some of them to the latter 
place, are five thousand five hundred fold strong, 
as well as other ties equally binding on the less 
ethereal part of human nature. To adopt, then, 
the Romish theory of apostolical succession 
would be to make their present position an open 
disguise to their consciences. So they have 
adopted their via media, or via sua theory of suc- 
cession, by which the more substantial part of 
their nature can be at Canterbury and their souls 
at Rome. ... In fact, they are a via media off- 
spring of two opposing qualities, like their father, 
Archbishop Laud. But what is most marvelous 
is, that these hybrids should increase, and instead 
of becoming less incongruous to the mixture 
of their natures, should become more so. But it 
should be borne in mind that we are speaking of 
what is moral and not what is physical, and that 
there is no accounting for the freaks of the 
human mind when it once becomes unhinged. 
As good Bishop Hall addressed Laud, their 
father, so we, in the same words, address his still 
more degenerate offspring : — 

" i I would I knew where to find you ; then I 
could tell how to take a direct aim ; whereas now 
I must rove and conjecture. To-day you are in 
the tents of the Romanists; to-morrow, in ours; 
the next day, between both, against both. Our 
adversaries think you ours ; we, theirs ; your con- 
science finds you with both and neither. . . • 



216 APPENDIX B. 

Cast off either your wings or your teeth ; cloth- 
ing this bat-like nature, be either a bird or a 
beast. . . . God cryeth with Jehu, " Who is on 
my side, who ? " Look at last out at your window 
to Him, and in a resolute courage, cast down this 
Jezebel that hath bewitched you.' " 

We earnestly commend this book to all who 
desire a thorough exposure of the sophistries by 
which Pusey, Palmer, Percival, Hook, Sewell, 
Wordsworth, Keble, the Bishops of Exeter and 
Oxford, have poisoned and perverted the minds 
of the clergy of our Church. Here will be found 
all the patristic authorities, and a complete answer 
to this whole scheme of diluted and modified 
Popery, which has slidden off the base of the Ref- 
ormation, and is surely approaching the slough 
out of which our martyred Reformers dragged 
and purged it. May God give us the spirit, and 
preserve to us the principles of those heroes and 
saints of whom the world was not worthy. 



APPENDIX C. 



FURTHER LAY TESTIMONY. 

We have met with a work of such value by a 
layman of the Church of England, that we can- 
not forbear to present a few extracts from it. 
This work is for the laity, for on them, we think, 
as Bishop Griswold often remarked, now rests, as 
far as man is concerned, the only hope for our 
Church. This volume is entitled, u Essays on 
the Church. By a Layman, pp. 486. Seeley & 
Burnside, London, 1840." The dangers which 
threaten our Church from the Sacramentarian and 
Traditionary party are here calmly and thoroughly 
considered. 

The writer says : " Most entirely and unreserv- 
edly, then, may we assent to the decisions and 
practice of the Church of England, with refer- 
ence to the episcopal form of church government. 
But with equal satisfaction may we accompany 
her in her cautious abstinence from dogmatism, 
as well as in her simple following of the footsteps 
of the Apostles. 



218 APPENDIX C 

" Using her own liberty with the greatest dis- 
cretion, she was not inclined to refuse the same 
freedom to other churches, or to prescribe rules of 
Christian communion of a stricter kind than those 
set forth in Holy Writ. And therefore it is that, 
while she adopts and prefers the episcopal form 
herself, — 

" II. She carefully abstains from making Episco- 
pacy an indispensable requisite in a Christian 
Church. 

" Her cautious abstinence on this point cannot 
be ascribed to inadvertence, or the absence of oc- 
casion. When the Articles of the Church of 
England were drawn up, discussed, and finally 
settled, the question of Episcopacy was one of the 
most prominent topics of discussion among theo- 
logians. In the neighboring kingdom of Scot- 
land, and in several of the Protestant churches 
of the Continent, the government by bishops had 
been discontinued. The English Church adopted 
a different course, and adhered to that form of 
Church order. In forming her articles, or confes- 
sion of faith, the question must needs have oc- 
curred, ' Whether Episcopacy was to be regarded 
as essential, and therefore to be included in that 
formulary ; or as merely expedient, and therefore 
passed over in silence ? ' This question, we know, 
did occur, was brought under the consideration of 
the framers of our Confession, and was decided 
according to the latter of these two views. We 



APPENDIX C. 219 

learn from Bishop Burnet, that in framing the 
23d Article, which describes those ministers to be 
6 lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and 
called to this work ' — not by bishops of the apos- 
tolic succession, but by men who have public au- 
thority given unto them in the congregation to 
call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard. 
We learn from Bishop Burnet that 'those who 
drew it had the state of the several churches before 
their eyes, that had been differently reformed ' from 
our own. He adds, i The genera] words in which 
this part of the article is framed seem to have 
been designed on purpose not to exclude them.' 
And herein we can unreservedly approve the judg- 
ment of our Reformers, inasmuch as it exactly 
coincides with that of Holy Writ. The Church 
leaves the question precisely where the Bible 
leaves it. 

" This moderate and cautious view of the ques- 
tion, however, is not at all palatable to the modern 
race of High Churchmen. With them, Episco- 
pacy is nothing less than a divine law, a positive 
and distinctly enunciated institution of Christ ; 
an institution, too, of universal obligation, under 
all possible variety of circumstances ; and, in fact, 
an indispensable condition, an essential point, in 
the very being of a Christian Church. And, of 
course, if it be of this rank, it follows that diso- 
bedience to it is not only criminal, but highly 
dangerous." 



220 APPENDIX C. 

After quoting from Dr. Pusey's writings his 
opinion, that none but an Episcopal minister could 
administer the communion, and that, — "refer- 
ring to ' non-episcopal societies,' — as there is 
hope for the unconverted heathen, there may be 
also a similar hope for the Presbyterians and Lu- 
therans," this author proceeds to give the lan- 
guage of the best divines of the English Church, 
in which is presented the moderate view of the 
23d Article. 

Among others, he quotes Dean Field, Archbish- 
ops Whitgift, Parker, Grindal, Cranmer, Usher, 
Wake, Synge, Seeker, and Howley ; also Bishops 
Hall, Andrewes, Tomline, and Bloomfield, with 
Hooker and Bacon. " And thus," he says, "from 
Cranmer down to the present hour, we find one 
unbroken line of witnesses to the fact, and of 
supporters of the principle, that the Church of 
England, to use Mr. Keble's own words, ' thinks 
it enough to assert that the government of arch- 
bishops and bishops is ancient and allovmble, 
without attempting to assert its exclusive claim, 
or to connect the succession with the validity of 
the sacraments.' " 

Our author proceeds : " And this is the wisest, 
because the safest, ground to take. The moment 
stricter and more lofty pretensions are urged, dif- 
ficulties and questions begin to open upon us. 
Human nature, indeed, blind to its own innate 
and irremovable imperfection, is very fond of 



APPENDIX C. 221 

seeking that unattainable possession, a perfect 
human institution. When the circle has been 
squared, when the atmosphere has been brought 
under rule, when the musical scale shall be per- 
fected, then may we begin to dream of a human 
society of faultless symmetry. Meanwhile let us 
be sure that the admission of a Judas among the 
Apostles of our all-seeing Lord, and of a Demas 
among the fellow-laborers of the chief of the 
Apostles, were both designed to yield instruction 
to future ages. Above all, let us remember that 
the only 'laying on of hands' recorded to have 
been received by Paul himself, was that of a ' cer- 
tain disciple ' (Acts ix. 17), and that while he evi- 
dently places the preaching of the Word above 
baptism, as the higher and more important func- 
tion (1 Cor. i. 17), we find it said that i they} 
without any distinction, i which were scattered 
abroad upon the persecution that arose about Ste- 
phen, travelled, preaching the Word' (Acts xi. 19). 
" The principle, then, should be Order ; the 
regulator, a Catholic Spirit. Those who would 
strain matters to an extremity, and strive to frame, 
out of human weakness, folly, and infirmity, a 
perfect system, are merely copying the builders 
of old, who essayed, out of Babylonish bricks and 
the slime of Shinar, to build a tower ' whose top 
might reach unto heaven' The Allwise rebuked 
their overweening pride and arrogant attempt by 
'confounding their language;' and a like fate 



222 APPENDIX C. 

attends the efforts of those who, in our own times, 
would rather side with Bonner and Gardiner, two 
prelates in c the holy apostolic line,' c in making 
havoc of the Church,' than with the Presbyterian 
Knox, in building up a spiritual temple of God, 
by the instrumentality of which c there were added 
to the church daily of such as should be saved? . . . 

" And let those who cannot be content with this 
general and catholic view take care, in their fur- 
ther inquiries, to discriminate carefully between 
two things, which are often very irrationally inter- 
mingled, namely, the unbroken succession, and the 
form of church government 

" These two things are perfectly distinct from 
each other, and yet the question is often argued 
as if they were so conjoined that the decision of 
either must decide both. (Here the clear head 
of this layman stands out so strongly in contrast 
with the confused utterances of extravagant ec- 
clesiastics !) But the erroneousness of this sup- 
position is seen in the fact that many firm sup- 
porters of an unbroken apostolic succession are 
also stanch maintainers of the Presbyterian 
scheme of government. They tell us that the 
Apostles constituted the Christian Church, ordain- 
ing elders (or presbyters) in every place, and that 
each local church was governed by these elders or 
presbyters. The existence in some cases of an 
overseer, or delegate of an Apostle, as in the cases 
of Timothy and Titus, they do not admit to es- 



APPENDIX C 223 

tablish a general rule. But still, while they ad- 
here to Presbyterianism, they maintain, as firmly 
as the highest Episcopalian, the necessity of a 
commission, handed down in regular and unbroken 
succession from the Apostles, to enable any man 
lawfully to exercise the ministerial office. 

" The number, then, of those who contend for 
the succession is much larger than of those who 
consider that such succession can only exist in 
the line of the episcopacy. And this was to be 
expected. Every man's reason, and the obvious 
fitness of things, is against the idea that the 
Christian ministry is an office and function which 
it is at any man's option, at any moment and un- 
der any circumstances, to confer upon himself. 

" The Church of England, therefore, in this 
matter, speaks clearly and decidedly : ' It is not 
lawful for any man to take upon him the office 
of public preaching, or ministering the sacraments 
in the congregation, before he be lawfully called 
and sent to execute the same.' (Art. xxiii.) But 
when she comes to define the term i lawfully 
called,' she is far less positive. She says that 
' we ought to judge those to be lawfully called 
and sent which be chosen and called to this work 
by men who have public authority given unto 
them in the congregation to call and send minis- 
ters into the Lord's vineyard.' Here she deliber- 
ately refuses, — for there is no other view to be 
taken of it, — ^he refuses to assert that those only 



224 APPENDIX C. 

are lawfully commissioned who have received 
episcopal ordination. Adopting Episcopacy itself, 
as the best system of church government, and as 
a system, the foundation of which she can trace 
in the apostolic writings, she yet refuses to assert 
that it is only from episcopal hands that the com- 
mission to preach the gospel can be lawfully 
received. 

" It was the judgment of her founders — perhaps 
unanimously, but at all events generally — that 
the bishop of the Primitive Church was merely a 
presiding elder, a presbyter ruling over presbyters ; 
identical in order and commission ; superior only 
in degree and authority. Cranmer's recorded 
' opinion and sentence ' (though on this, as well 
as on other questions, his mind underwent vari- 
ous changes) was, 'that bishops and priests were 
not two things, but were both one office in the be- 
ginning of Christ's religion.' 

" The judgment and the practice of Archbish- 
ops Parker, Grindal, and "Whitgift we have al- 
ready noticed ; and Mr. Palmer, as we have seen, 
confesses, that it was the opinion of Jewel, 
Hooker, and Field, ' that a mere presbyter might 
confer every order except the episcopate ; ' in 
other words, that the apostolic succession of the 
presbyters might be continued by presbyters, the 
episcopate being laid aside or lost. . . . 

" Common sense, if we could banish the school- 
men, the councils, and the system-makers, . . . 



APPENDIX C. 225 

would tell us, — Rest not in long descent, or in 
indubitable succession from the Apostles, or in 
general concurrence with the whole body of Chris- 
tians, or in any other external marks ! Christ 
founded a Church; He commissioned a body of 
preachers of His gospel, and He left them a few 
plain and simple rules. Try every church, then, 
that professes to be following His injunctions, by 
the record and injunction He has left: To the 
law and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord- 
ing to this word, it is because there is no light in 
them? 

" And such is the course distinctly pointed out 
in Scripture. Not a syllable is there to tell us 
that a divine commission, regularly transmitted in 
strict succession, or an external unity of profes- 
sion, is to be our guide in reposing our confidence 
in a priesthood or a church. Nothing could be 
clearer than the divine institution of the Old Tes- 
tament priesthood ; and yet, how many threaten- 
ings and reproaches does God Himself direct 
against these, his commissioned ministers ! " 

Then, quoting largely from the Scriptures of 
both covenants, our author proceeds : " Many 
other passages might be adduced, if space per- 
mitted, to show that the grand point pressed by 
all the Apostles was, continuance in sound doctrine. 
This was with them the chief note or mark of a 
true or faithful church. ... 

" The one question, then, in the Scriptures. 

15 



226 APPENDIX C. 

touching any church, is, Is it faithful ? — faithful 
to the doctrine intrusted to its care ? Is the gos- 
pel preached the same gospel which the Apostles 
declared, or is it ' another gospel,' against which 
St. Paul fulminated his anathemas ? This is the 
chief and almost the only point suggested in 
Holy Writ as the mark or note of a true 
church." 

Our author sustains his view by quoting the 
two Reformers of greatest influence, Bishops Rid- 
ley and Jewel. We leave him here, with the 
remark that his work will repay the most careful 
perusal of any one who would read a thorough 
examination and exposure of the errors which 
now are spreading through* our Church. 

" Bishop Ridley, in his second conference, quotes 
Chrysostom to this effect : ' In times past, there 
were many ways to know the Church of Christ, 
that is to say, by good life, by miracles, by char- 
ity, by doctrine, by ministering the sacraments. 
But from the time that heresies took hold of the 
churches, it is only known by the Scriptures which 
is the true Church. They have all things in out- 
ward show, which the true Church hath in truth. 
They have temples like unto ours,' etc., etc., 
1 wherefore only by the Scriptures do we know 
which is the true Church.' 

" Bishop Jewel says : ' Our Lord, knowing that 
there should be such con/usion of things in the 
latter days, commandeth that Christians, who live 



APPENDIX C 227 

in the profession of Christian faith, and are de- 
sirous to settle themselves upon a sure ground of 
faith, should go to no other thing but the Scrip- 
tures.'' i But whereas they (the Papists) make 
the Holy Scriptures like silent masses, dumb and 
useless ; and appeal rather to God Himself, speak- 
ing in the Church and in councils, that is, to their 
own senses and opinions ; that is a very uncertain 
and dangerous way of finding out truth, and in a 
sort fanaticaV " (" Essays on the Church," pp. 
227-51, 151-52.) 

DR. IRA WARREN. 

We turn now to the testimony of an American 
layman, who has written a work of great research 
and value, entitled, " The Causes and Cure of 
Puseyism. By Ira Warren. Boston, 1847." 

On p. 258 he writes : " My conviction is that 
government, civil and ecclesiastical, is of divine 
appointment ; but that its particular form, in the 
one case as in the other, has not been made the 
subject of any positive divine enactment, but has 
been left to the molding, under Divine Provi- 
dence, of times and circumstances, in accordance 
with the wants of the race in its various moral 
and physical conditions. 

" I believe, therefore, that the preface of the 
Prayer Book is right in referring to discipline all 
things not clearly included under the term ' doc- 
trine,' and in declaring that, without exception, 



228 APPENDIX C. 

they are — Episcopacy and the form of church 
government of course included — alterable at the 
pleasure of the Church. I have never seen the 
fact that our Church takes this ground before 
stated; but here it is in the Prayer Book. It 
cannot be evaded. 

" The exclusive views growing out of the divine 
right of Episcopacy have no support, then, either 
in the Bible or in the Prayer Book. No real 
progress can be made towards the cure of Pusey- 
ism, until evangelical men shall have discarded 
from their minds every vestige of the divine right 
of Episcopacy. 

" Moreover, if we would get rid of our tracta- 
rian tendencies, we must cultivate Christian union. 
We must abandon all our lofty notions, and step 
right upon the platform of Christian brotherhood, 
taking every Christian man by the hand as a 
brother and an equal, and, according to the true 
gospel rule, esteeming others better than ourselves. 
The spirit of the age demands this of us. With- 
out it we shall, in the great race of love and char- 
ity, on which the Protestant Church is entering so 
earnestly, be left far in the rear. Our own life as 
a denomination demands it of us. Without it, 
we «hall be thrown practically, in spite of us, into 
the society and fellowship of the apostate Church 
of Rome. Our loyalty to Christ requires it of us. 
Without it, our position will more and more be 
found, of necessity, to be one of antagonism to 
Him and His cause." 



APPENDIX C. 229 

In his preface (page 12), this author writes : 
" Having studied, to some extent, the history, doc- 
trines, formularies, and usages of the Episcopal 
Church, I find there are many things which, in 
my humble opinion, ought to be reformed or 
given up, but which are growing worse and worse, 
with no prospect of amendment, unless those in 
high places can be reached with reproofs which 
we have all hitherto failed to apply, either for 
want of courage or lack of the means of doing 
so. . . . 

" My aim, therefore, in the following pages, is 
to reach the laity, and to press upon their atten- 
tion a succession of topics, which, by great effort, 
and to the manifest injury of our denomination, 
have been kept out of view. No doubt the theme, 
to many of our people, will be a new one, but 
not, I trust, the less inviting on that account. If 
I am not mistaken, it will awaken the more atten- 
tion from the care with which it has hitherto been 
concealed. At any rate, my desire is to see it 
awaken a general concern among us for the purity 
of the gospel. I would have an interest in this 
matter reach all the borders of our denomination, 
and the General Convention made to feel so 
heavy a pressure of public sentiment from with- 
out, and so imperative a prompting from within, 
as to be willing to take the matter in hand, and 
revise the Liturgy, making it thoroughly Protest- 
ant. . . . 



230 APPENDIX C. 

" Bishop Griswold, the wisest man our Church 
in this country has ever had, and who was better 
acquainted than any other man with the condi- 
tion and prospects of the Episcopal churches in 
New England, thus speaks in his Address delivered 
before the Convention of the Eastern Diocese 
in 1837 : { The prejudice in these Eastern States 
against forms of prayer, and the objections so gen- 
erally made to some parts of ours particularly yand 
to the length of our morning service^ are powerful 
obstacles to our increase. . . . When there shall 
have been a judicious revision of our Liturgy^ in 
the manner wisely recommended by our venera- 
ble brother, Bishop White, deceased, I doubt not 
but our churches will more rapidly increase? 

" To these testimonies of our first two presiding 
bishops, we may add the emphatic words of a 
kindred spirit, the late Archbishop Sumner : ' Let 
me remove twenty words from the Prayer Book, 
and in one day I will reunite to the Church 
twenty thousand dissenters.' " 

On this point, our author quotes on his title-page 
the strong language of another eminent Episcopal 
layman, Isaac Taylor : " How little did the vener- 
able men — the martyrs of the English Church 
— imagine what they were doing, and what a har- 
vest for their country they were preparing, when, 
from a mistaken anxiety to conciliate the adher- 
ents of the ancient idolatry, they professed their 
submission to the very authors of that idolatry, 



APPENDIX C. 231 

and admitted into th6 constitution they formed, 
the roots of the ancient delusion, and the germs 
of an after growth of polytheism ! " 

LORD BACON. 

We close the testimony of these noble lay 
brethren with the words of the most distinguished 
man of the age in which our Prayer Book was 
revised and settled, one thoroughly familiar with 
the principles upon which his Church was based, 
and with the great men who reformed it, Lord 
Francis Bacon. 

He writes : " For the second point, that there 
should be but one form of discipline in all 
churches, and that imposed by necessity of com- 
mandment and prescript out of the Word of God, 
it is a matter volumes have been compiled of, and 
therefore cannot receive a brief redargution. I 
for my part do confess, that in searching the 
Scriptures I could never find any such thing, but 
that God hath left the like liberty to the church 
government as he hath done to the civil govern- 
ment ; to be varied according to time, place, and 
accident, which nevertheless His high and divine 
providence doth order and dispose. ... So like- 
wise in church matters, the substance of doctrine 
is immutable; and so are the general rules of 
government; but for rites and ceremonies, and for 
the particular hierarchies, policies, and discipline 
of churches, they be left at large ; and, therefore, it 



232 APPENDIX C. 

is good we return to the ancient bounds of unity 
in the Church of God, which was one faith, one 
baptism, and not one hierarchy, one discipline." 

Speaking of the party which, when he wrote 
(1609), under Bancroft, Andrewes, and Laud, were 
gradually advancing more extreme views, Bacon 
continues: " The other part, which maintaineth the 
present government of the Church, hath not kept 
one tenor neither. First, those ceremonies which 
were pretended to be corrupt, they maintained to 
be things indifferent, and opposed the examples 
of the good times of the Church to that challenge 
which was made unto them, because they were 
used in the later superstitious times. Then they 
were also content mildly to acknowledge many 
imperfections in the Church, as tares come up 
amongst the corn ; which yet, according to the 
wisdom taught by our Saviour, were not with 
strife to be pulled up, lest it might spoil and sup- 
plant the good corn, but to grow on together till 
the harvest. 

" After, they grow to a more absolute defence 
and maintenance of all the orders of the Church, 
and stiffly to hold that nothing was to be inno- 
vated, partly because it would make a breach 
upon the rest. Hence, exasperated through con- 
tentions, they are fallen to a direct condemnation 
of the contrary part, as of a sect. Yea, and some 
indiscreet persons have been bold, in open preach- 
ing, to use dishonorable and derogatory speech 



APPENDIX C. 233 

and censure of the churches abroad ; and that so 
far, as some of our men, as I have heard, ordained 
in foreign parts, have been pronounced to be un- 
lawful ministers. Thus we see the beginnings 
were modest, but the extremes are violent, so 
as there is almost as great a distance now of 
either side from itself, as was at first the one from 
the other. . . . 

" To my lords the bishops I say, that it is hard 
for them to avoid blame in the opinion of an 
indifferent person, in standing so precisely upon 
altering nothing. Laws, not refreshed with new 
laws, wax sour. Without a change of ill, a man 
cannot continue the good. To take away many 
abuses supplanteth not good orders, but estab- 
lished them. A contentious retaining of custom 
is a turbulent thing as well as innovation. A 
good husbandman is ever pruning in his vineyard 
or in his field — not unseasonably indeed, not un- 
skilfully, but lightly ; he findeth ever somewhat 
to do. . . . 

" But if it be said to me, that there is a differ- 
ence between civil causes and ecclesiastical, they 
may as well tell me that churches and chapels 
need no reparations, though castles and houses 
do ; whereas, commonly to speak truth, dilapida- 
tions of the inward and spiritual edifications of 
the Church of God are, in all times, as great as 
the outward and material. Sure I am, that the 
very word and style of reformation used by our 



234 APPENDIX C. 

Saviour, Ab initio non fait sic, was applied* to 
church matters, and those of the highest nature, 
concerning the law moral." (" Considerations con- 
cerning the better Pacification and Edification 
of the Church of England." By Francis, Lord 
Bacon.) 

How remarkably is the history of the Church 
of England reproduced in our own day ! May 
we have grace to see it, and profit by the experi- 
ence of the past! 

We venture the assertion that there is more 
scriptural truth, sound philosophy, and true 
churchmanship, as to the point in question, in the 
words of these five learned. and judicious laymen 
we have given — Garrat, Bowdler, Warren, Bacon, 
and the author of the Essays — than in all the vol- 
umes written by the Tractarians, Ritualists, and 
their followers, English and American, for the last 
generation. 



O Almighty God, who hast built Thy Church 
upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, 
Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone : 
grant us so to be joined together in unity of Spirit 
by their doctrine^ that we may be made a holy 
temple acceptable unto Thee, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. — Collect for St. Simon 
and St. Jude's Day. 



INDEX. 



A. 

PAGE 

Alford, Dean, Testimony of 189 

Amalariws, " 208 

Ambrose, " 21 

Anonymous Author, " 195 



B 

Babington, Bp., Testimony of 186 

231 

184 

114 

150 

17 

78 

168 

138 

26 

4 



Bacon, Lord, 
Bancroft, Abp., 
Bangs, Dr., 
Baxter, Richard, 
Bingham, 
Bowdler, 
Bradford, John, 
Brown, Dr., 
Bullinger, 
Burnet, Bp., 



C. 

Calfhill, Testimony of 183 

Campbell, Dr., " 142 

Coleman, Lyman, " 121 

Cosin, Bp., " 4 

Cranmer, Abp., Liberality of 7 

" " Testimony of 175 

Cumming, Dr., " 127 



D. 
Davenant, Bp., Testimony of 187 



E. 

PAGE 

Edward VI., Patent granted 

by .... 6 

Essays on the Church, Notice 

of .... 217 

Eutychius, Testimony of . 19 



Field, Dean, Testimony of 186 

Fleetwood, Bp., " 5 

Fulke, Dr., " 181 

G. 

Garratt, W. A., Argument of 69 

Giesler, Testimony of . 108 

Goode, Dr., " . 56 

Griswold, Bp., " . 320 

H. 

Hall, Bp., Testimony of . 3 

Hallam, " . 5 
Harrison, John, Confirmatory 

evidence of 212 
Hase, Dr., Testimony of 15 
111 

" 21 

' 156 

' 153 

' 173 

1 191 

< 15 
14 



Herzog, 
Hilary, 
Hoadley, Bp., 
Hooker, Richard, 
Hooper, Bp., 
Hopkins, Bp., 
Hospinian, 
Howe, Prof, 



236 



INDEX. 



J. 

Jarvis, Examination of 
Jerome, St., Testimony of 
Jewel, Bp., " 

K. 

Keble, Testimony of . 
Killen,Dr., " 



PAGE 

94 

22 

176 



3 

131 



Latimer, Bp., Testimony of 173 

Laud, Abp., " 188 

Lavman, A., " 217 

Litton, Prof., " 55 

Lord, Dr., ' " 10 



M. 

Macaulay, Testimony of . 5 
Mahan, Dr., Examination of 96 
Mason, Francis, Testimony of 184 
Morinus, " 81 

Musgrave, Abp., " 192 



Neale, Rev. J. M. Argument 

of .... 87 

Neander, Testimony of . 110 



O. 

O'Brien, Bp., Testimony of . 190 



Pearson, Dean, Testimony of 189 
Percival, Dr., Examination 

of .... 87 
Philpot, Archdeacon, Testi- 
mony of 175 
Pilkington, Bp., Testimony of 180 
Powell, Thomas, " 111 



R. 

PAGE 

Rainolds, Dr., Testimony of 30 
Riddle, Rev. J. E., " 59, 64 

Ridley, Bp., " 171 

" Rights of the Christian 

Church,' 1 Notice of 195 



S. 



Testimony of 107 
21 



Schaff,Dr., 
Severus, 
Smith, Dr., 
Stanley, Dean, 
Stevens, Abel, 
Stillingfleet, Bp., 
Strype, 
Sumner, Abp., 



Tertullian, Testimony of 
Tostatus, " 

Tyler, Prof., 



192 

16,54 

116 

47 

3 

193 



63 

210 

12 



U. 

Usher, Abp., Testimony of . 45 



Via Media, Theory of 



W. 



214 



Warren, Dr., Testimony of 227 
Wharton, Dr., " * 191 

White, Francis, Bp., " 187 

White, Thomas, " 187 

Whitgift, Abp., Order of . 27 

" u Testimony of 24 

Whittaker, Dr., " ' 181 

"Whose are the Fathers?" 

Notice of 206 

Willet, Dr., Testimony of 34, 181 
Wilson, Dr., " 116 






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